


With Every Heartbeat

by rilla



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 14:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 92,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/pseuds/rilla
Summary: It's 2025, and Zayn has decided to reunite with the rest of the band for one special show. As he tries to mend old friendships, he gets more than he bargained for when he sees Harry for the first time in ten years.





	1. ONE.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fcktaken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fcktaken/gifts).



> This fic is written for my sweet friend [fcktaken](https://fcktaken.tumblr.com/), who donated kindly to Planned Parenthood for the Fandom Trumps Hate auction. I am so sorry this has taken me so long and I have been so uncertain about it. Thank you for being a good friend, unfailingly patient, and a beautiful, kind soul. I really hope you like this fic. I would also like to say thank you to [ohnoballoons](http://ohnoballoons.tumblr.com/) (on redbubble [here](https://www.redbubble.com/people/ohnoballoons)!) who made me the absolute [greatest ever title page](http://flomps.tumblr.com/post/181937921461/fic-post-with-every-heartbeat#notes) for this story. I love it so much. Finally, thank you to everyone who has encouraged me to write this (particularly Grace, the most supportive and encouraging friend ever) - it took a while, it was a labour of love, but finally here we are.
> 
> Last note: this fic mentions anxiety, mental health, and eating disorders, so please be aware of that. And the title was taken from the incredible Robyn song of the same name.

ONE.

Zayn is almost late. In New York there’s a storm and the planes are grounded, and then all the commercial flights are mixed up for hours. Even in the first-class lounge there are crowds of people clutching their passports with white knuckles, looking anxious and having terse conversations with anyone in an airline uniform. He hunkers down in the corner with his headphones on, his eyes shut and familiar songs in his ears. His assistant Megan sits beside him, tapping worriedly on her phone and glancing up at the announcement boards so that she can elbow him in the ribs as soon as his flight is called. But half the planes are cancelled, and others are rescheduled over and over, and in the end, as Megan’s phone buzzes and some poor event organiser in London gets closer and closer to having a coronary, he decides to take a private jet. He gets into Luton at half past six London time and then the traffic down to Greenwich is the worst he’s ever seen it. Slow, stopping and starting, a couple of accidents on the motorway, rush hour traffic when they finally get into the city. He sits in the back of the car staring hard out of the window, more and more anxious, biting at flakes of dry skin on his bottom lip. Tasting blood, eventually. In a way, he’s grateful that he has the traffic to focus on as a hub of worry, instead of the day itself. 

He gets to the O2 at quarter past eight. Their stage time is nine. He has his own dressing room, of course. Megan vanishes off to the green room and comes back with cups of tea. His is strong with two sugars, proper northern builder’s tea. They make eye contact as they take their first sips. “Ahh,” she says, her face melting into a blissful expression that he relates to on an extremely deep and sincere level. “That’s so good. Are you hungry? There was food – burgers and salads and cake and some healthy stuff too—”

Zayn makes a face at the concept of eating healthy food and she laughs. “You want me to get you a burger?” she asks.

“Nah. I’m all right.” His stomach is starting to turn, rolling inside him. He sniffs in a deep breath. It’s been two and a half years since he quit smoking and he still hasn’t stopped missing it at times like this. He pops in a throat lozenge and takes a sip of tea around it. Disgusting. “Fuck’s sake.” 

Megan makes a sympathetic face that he knows is less actual sympathy and more an attempt to make him stop complaining. “Do you need to warm up?”

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” Zayn deadpans. “Mee-may-mah-mo-moo. There. Sorted.”

She sighs at him and starts tapping on her phone yet again, turning away and effectively dismissing him. Fair play, he can’t blame her at all. He glances at the dressing room, which is different from the way he remembers the O2. He never played big venues like this solo: it gave him anxiety so acute that it didn’t feel worth it, so he played a few nights at the Hammersmith Apollo instead when he toured the UK. He has only done two official solo tours, and only then when his team strongly suggested it was a good idea. In the end, they weren’t too bad. He took them slow and measured, and tried not to pack in too many shows in too short an amount of time. It’s been about eleven years since he was backstage at this particular venue. They’ve redecorated in that time, which is why he doesn’t recognise shit. The dressing room itself is lush, all soft shaggy rugs that he feels bad stamping his old boots all over, and beautiful plants with leaves that are so green and shiny he thinks they might be fake. Back in the band’s day, it was dank and ugly backstage. There was bad fluorescent lighting, and grey concrete walls that had sheets billowing off them to disguise the fact that the ambiance was more like a dodgy supermarket carpark than a world-famous arena. Acts like Mariah Carey might have had massive riders with puppies and silk and whatever, but the band always just wanted some decent food, and some beers and weed, and a bit of table tennis, which unfortunately he never, ever won at.

“I’m just going to have a look around,” he tells Megan, who frowns thoughtfully at him and then nods, gesturing him out of the room even as she says, “Zayn, make sure—”

“I know. I won’t be late to go on stage. I’ll be back soon.” He smiles, doing his best to be reassuring. 

“No, that wasn’t what I meant.” She looks like she’s trying hard to find the right words, and then sighs heavily, her blonde brows furrowed. “I know it’s a big day for you. Just take care of yourself.”

“I will.” That’s oddly touching. Megan’s a few years younger than him but she’s the oldest of a few siblings, and whenever she talks to her little brothers on the phone it always reminds Zayn of the way she talks to him, affectionate and stern at the same time. Louis is the oldest in his family too, which is probably why they all looked up to him when they were in the band. He was good at being their big brother, and when he needed to be, he was good at being their parent too. That was probably because he was so close to his mum. She was an incredible person.

Jay is why Zayn’s here today. He missed her wedding and then he missed her funeral, but he’s here today for her concert. It’s been arranged in support of Johannah’s Wish, the foundation that Louis set up in his mum’s memory. It’s in aid of charities she worked with, for terminally ill children and young carers and kids with encephalitis. Anyone who needs help, really. On the wall there’s a poster with her name and face on, her familiar smile that still sends shivers of simultaneous love and pain through Zayn’s body whenever he sees it. FOR JAY, it says, and underneath the photo, WITH LOVE. There’s no way that Zayn would be here today if the show wasn’t for her. There is no way that he would reunite with the band for anyone else. He has great memories of her: offering him encouraging smiles and advice on how to ‘deal with Louis’ backstage at the X Factor, when she came to visit them in their London flats and worked out that he was homesick and gave him a hug and didn’t mention it when he cried a bit into her shoulder, when she texted him after he left the band and told him that he’d always be part of her family. She did everything with love, and it’s something that he wishes he was better at himself. He gets irritated easily, he can be impatient, he gives up when things get hard, in arguments he can be cutting and harsh. He hopes that knowing what these flaws are will help him to stamp them out. He looks at her photo again and makes himself smile the way that she’d want him to. _With love_.

He winds his way through the corridors, which are thankfully so busy that nobody is paying much attention to him. He hears familiar laughter crackle out of a dressing room. _Niall_. He looks at the closed door and feels afraid of going inside, which is stupid because there’s nothing Niall could do to hurt him after so long apart. He carries on walking as he finally gets down to the last of the throat lozenge. He crunches the remnants of it between his teeth and winces at the medicinal taste. Members of the tech team hurry past, speaking into headsets and looking serious and busy, and he passes a cluster of lads who are about ten years younger than him. For an intensely surreal moment he thinks with absolute clarity: _Their outfits are stupid_. In the seconds after those words cross his mind, he has never felt older. He doesn’t know who they are, but he’s heard that there are a couple of bands on the bill, none of whom he has heard of. They’re Louis’s sort of music. Not his at all, he knows he won’t like them – but thinking that way and making those assumptions in advance is where the problems start, where they always started. He swallows it back. Maybe he’ll like them. And then again, maybe he won’t.

There are so many fucking corridors backstage at the O2. It’s like a small village, a rabbit warren made of concrete and sweat. Lottie Tomlinson darts out of a door with an expression of determination on her face and a makeup brush waggling about in her hand, and almost smacks right into him. “Shit! Sorry!” Her face changes when she looks up at him. “Zayn! I didn’t know you were here. Does Louis know? He was worrying you wouldn’t make it.”

“There were storms in New York,” Zayn says inanely.

“Yeah, I heard.” She looks earnestly at him but clearly doesn’t know what to say. “It’s nice you’re here!” She sounds falsely bright.

“It wouldn’t have made a difference if I wasn’t,” Zayn says, wanting to compliment the others and hide at the same time. “I mean, they managed without me before—”

“It would have made a difference.” She touches his arm. He remembers her nails being long colourful talons but they’re short and neat now. He heard that she had a baby a few years ago, so maybe that’s why. They’re all growing up, although he sometimes doesn’t feel that way about himself. “He’s been looking forward to it. I’d better…” She waves the makeup brush.

“Yeah.” He watches her dash off. There are voices coming from various dressing rooms, footsteps, a guy with a clipboard and a ginger beard squeezing past him. Feeling alone backstage when he’s surrounded by people isn’t new to him. It feels too cluttered and messy, there’s too much going on, he wants to hide and get away. Discontent is finding its way into his bloodstream like a parasite. He could go to his dressing room and annoy Megan, he could find Louis to say hello, he could go and watch whoever’s on stage from the wings. He can hear the crashing of drums, which means that it probably isn’t anything he’d enjoy. He’d just feel left out and start wondering bitterly why everyone else was enjoying it when he couldn’t make himself feel the same way. Ahead of him the maze of corridors is coming to an end, breaking into a long cool passageway that looks the same as it did the last time he was here. Down that passageway there’s a staircase and up the staircase is an alcove. It smells like damp and cold stone but it’s quiet and insulated from the craziness below, and there’s a window, unwashed and mottled from the outside from old rain. Through the window, you can see the stars.

He makes his way there, almost nervous. He tells himself that it doesn’t matter – it’s just an oasis of quiet space that he liked to escape to when they played here. But there are memories attached, some of which are painful in a bad way. The rest are painful in a sweet way, like pressing on a bruise or the heat of a tattooist’s needle. Sitting on that window ledge alone, heart pounding, trying to catch his breath. Pushing the window open, leaning half out so he didn’t set the fire alarms off with his cigarette. Seeing cars find spaces in the car park, seeing girls get out of those cars with their mums and dads, seeing them alight with excitement even though Zayn knew that the five of them were just idiots and undeserving of that sort of idolatry. The stubbornness of the certainty that he shouldn’t be there, that he had chosen the wrong path. Knowing how much money he was about to make from the evening ahead of him, what he could do with that money, the people he would let down if he was to change his mind about any of it. And of course he changed it in the end – they all changed their minds, but the others were quieter about it. He was the one who was the loudest about the ways it had all started to splinter apart. He brought the hammer smashing down on everything they’d built together.

He remembers the steps. Grey concrete, a strip of white on each one to cover the venue’s arse in case someone’s off their face and plunges down the stairs and breaks their back. The walls are painted a dingy cream and there are fingerprints on them and flecks of masking tape. He remembers coming up these stairs with Harry’s footsteps behind him, a laugh on his mouth, the two of them hand-in-hand, Harry’s other hand half pushing him up the stairs, brushing over his arse, fingers tightening there for a moment. He remembers his heart thudding with joyful exhilaration at what they were about to do. There were probably security cameras but they didn’t care. He thinks that sometimes they wanted to get caught, that they wanted people to know, that they wanted to make what was happening between them into an ending or a beginning. Into a certainty, at least. 

He remembers the cold on his bare knees in his ripped jeans when he knelt on the concrete floor, Harry’s hands hard in his hair, Zayn’s cock hard in his pants. The heady way that his whole body coiled with want when he turned to see the faint outline of his teeth on Harry’s neck later on as the five of them lined up on the platform that was going to burst them onto the stage. Standing in front of twenty thousand people with the sweet, salty taste of Harry Styles’s come on his tongue. In the dressing rooms after the show: the five of them pushing each other with exhilaration, chest-bouncing off each other like they were in a mosh pit, before scattering to shower and change and get out and home. Harry looked at him with lazy curiosity as he shoved everything quickly into his backpack. “I’ve got to get home to—” Zayn remembers saying, and knows that he didn’t bother with Perrie’s name.

“The night’s still young,” Harry said. It was during the time that he liked to tan a lot, so his skin was the colour of honey and his eyes were remarkably green, like still pondwater with the sun shining onto it. “Listen, I’m just going to go for a shower…”

Gesturing towards his changing room door. Smiling, slow and knowing. Zayn’s chest was bursting with the reality of what he was about to choose to do – what he chose to do every time. That flicker of uncertainty in Harry’s eyes just before he turned away that kept Zayn coming back to him. Every time, Zayn followed him. Every time he wanted Harry and they were both in London, or Harry was in a hotel and Zayn and Louis were outside in the tour bus. Every time he sent Harry a message saying ‘wyd’ – the sheer fact that those three letters were all he had to send, and grammar conscious Harry Styles would leap at it every time. Both of them were idiots. 

God, it was fun.

He lets his fingers trail along the wall as he jogs upstairs, which is a lot easier than it used to be since he quit smoking. Spending years claiming that it didn’t affect his health at all was in hindsight a ridiculous thing to do, particularly since the chest infection that lasted what felt like a whole winter and that meant he had to cancel three shows. After that, his mum held his hands in hers and looked him in the eye and asked him to give up. He hasn’t ever been able to deny her anything, which is why he has spent swathes of his life living on the other side of the world from his family. Making promises that he actually has to keep is pretty inconvenient.

Up the steps one more half-flight. He remembers his bare back pressed against the cool wall as Harry dragged his shirt up to rake his fingernails over his skin. That tense edginess in the car on the way back to Harry’s place in Hampstead afterwards, the two of them pressed into opposite corners of the back seat, heavy and silent with the knowledge of what they were about to do. The driver was cheerfully unaware in the front and Kiss FM blared, comically out of place. The light inside Harry’s house was too bright and too pale after almost an hour spent in the dark of the car with streetlights flickering over their faces. Zayn dropped his backpack in the hallway and wished there was a dog there to come pattering up to them, or even a cat coiling its tail around the banisters as it wound its way downstairs. He read somewhere that Harry has a cat these days. Good for him. 

He turns the corner. A figure is there by the window already, silhouetted in the floodlights from outside. The edges of his hair are burning bright white and the scent of him is the same as it was years ago. Zayn lets out a breath. Of course. “Harry.”

“You remembered.” Harry’s smiling, just a bit. He steps away from the window and into the comparative shadow of the stairwell.

“When we needed a quiet moment…” Zayn shrugs at the space. “Yeah.”

Harry nods. “Have you been back here since?”

Zayn shakes his head. He knows Harry has, he’s played the O2 plenty of times. He’s seen ads for his tours and his shows and his films and even once a fashion retrospective at the V&A. Harry’s been everywhere so of course he’s been here. “Have you?” he asks, despite knowing already.

“Yeah, a few times. It’s still nice and quiet up here. It’s _manic_ down there.” He shakes his head, wide-eyed, and somehow he looks like that boy from fifteen years ago, startled that fans were waiting in the X Factor car park for them. “And I don’t know who they all are! All the singers and bands! I feel like I’m my mum.”

Zayn laughs despite himself. “If only you looked like her too.”

Harry pretends to gasp, covering his mouth with long fingers. There’s something slightly more camp about him these days. It’s not a bad thing, not bad in the slightest. It’s a sort of theatricality, and although Zayn likes a quiet life, he also likes a good show, so he’s into it. He’s never had a problem with fame, he’s always been able to hide himself away when he wanted to, but he did have a problem with the sanitised image that the band had to sell. Even back then Harry was breaking away from it in a way that Zayn almost envied because he wasn’t sure how to do it himself while remaining in the confines of the group. Obviously he never managed to work it out, because he walked out instead. These days Harry is a million miles away from a gleaming-toothed boy band superstar, even down to the way he’s dressed: his trousers are dark teal velvet, impeccably cut with the hems sitting just above his ankle bones. His shirt is shell pink, like the inside of a mouse’s ear, and the silk is so thin that Zayn can see the dark swirls of his tattoos through it. Unfathomably and slightly revoltingly, his feet are bare. He’s mastered the art of looking carelessly rich in a way that Zayn has never quite managed. 

“So are you coming to the party afterwards?” Harry asks, after a moment that Zayn realises belatedly is a moment too long.

“I don’t know.” No one told him about any party, which means he probably isn’t wanted there.

“Niall said you wouldn’t,” Harry says, “which means that you should come.”

“Oh, did he?” Zayn smiles, mostly, but it sort of hurts. Niall has always been the one with a shadow hanging over his memory: Zayn is on decent terms with Liam, and good terms with Louis whenever they talk, which admittedly is not frequently, and he’s come to view the silence that he and Harry shared over the last ten years as something resembling comfortable. Sex had muddied their friendship, and so it made sense that after the sex was over, things between them would be confusing and unpleasant. But Niall: losing him was painful in a way that Zayn had never anticipated. 

“I might be there too,” Harry says.

“Disgusting,” Zayn says immediately. “I absolutely will not turn up to a party that admits the likes of you.”

Harry laughs, looking delighted. “Oh, DJ Malik. This is what I missed.”

Zayn can’t help it. He lets the corner of his mouth turn up into a smirk and says, his voice like silk: “ _That’s_ what you missed?” He lets the smirk fall gently into a smile.

A low flush flares on Harry’s cheekbones, visible even in this light. Zayn knows him: that blush will sink down into his neck, his pale skin will blotch, touching it will feel like fire – except he won’t touch it, because it’s over ten years since the last time and surely they should be past that by now. Harry says, “Among other things.” He lets out a breath and sticks his hands into his pockets, which is funny because they’re small and his hands are quite big so they don’t entirely fit. “Are you ready to go onstage?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Being here now is making Zayn’s nerves die down. He forgot how reassuring it was to know that if he wanted to, he could hide behind one of the others and disappear for a moment. “You’re doing _Drag Me Down_ first, right?”

“ _We_ are,” Harry says firmly. “You should come up and do it with us.”

“No. I don’t even know the words,” Zayn says, which is a lie because it was on the five-song set list that he had on shuffle on the plane when he was trying to remind himself how to sing his parts.

“You don’t have to sing the words,” Harry says.

“Oh please. I still remember that silent treatment you gave me and Louis when we forgot _Stockholm Syndrome_ on stage,” Zayn says. “And if I fuck up this concert, a lot of people are going to be like: @zaynmalik, why are you so shit?”

“Me most of all,” Harry says. “@Harry-underscore-Styles tweets: @zaynmalik, you are a _betrayer_ and now you have _disrespected_ an oh-tee-four song—”

Zayn’s laughing, despite himself. He forgot that Harry was funny. How could he have forgotten that Harry’s funny? “You are such a twat,” he says.

“Thank you.” Harry’s smile is still like sunshine. “I’m not saying you should elbow Liam out of the way and take over the bridge. But you could come on towards the end…”

Zayn imagines it. Going to join the other four onstage for the first time in so long. Slotting back into place – will they remember to leave space for him? What if the audience boos him? He’s got the best fans ever, they’ve loved him for years and supported him through some shit, but he also knows there were a lot of fans of the band that never made the leap over to his solo career. Fans who thought that he betrayed them, or that he should never have been there to begin with, or that the band was better without him. Maybe all of those things are true, but the band in its essence was at its best when it was about the five of them – lying together on mattresses on Harry’s living room floor to practise for The X Factor, sitting crammed in the back of an Addison Lee going from radio station to radio station to promote their first single, and harmonising together for fun. And even towards the end: that time he and Louis were huddled in a bunk together on one of their tour buses when they were in Australia, and Niall pulled back the curtain and said “Room for one more?” and Liam pitched himself in as well, and Harry passed by and frowned at them before wriggling in too, his shoulder firm and certain against Zayn’s, his hair brushing the side of Zayn’s face. 

If the other boys are okay with him being alongside them again, he’s okay with it too. He doesn’t want to make it a permanent thing and he’s pretty sure that Harry won’t want to do any hardcore band stuff again, but he needs to remember that he can reduce it, mentally, to what really matters. There will be twenty thousand faces in the rest of the arena, and a livestream going out to millions of screens across the world. There will be so many critical eyes and so many shadowed faces that he can’t make out and so many comments that he’s too mentally exhausted to contemplate reading. But on the stage there will be four faces – four faces that he used to love, and that used to love him in return. Love is like energy: it can change and it can transform but it doesn’t ever really disappear. Hopefully that love will be there for him tonight.

He lets out a breath. “What do you want me to do?”

Harry’s eyebrows shoot up happily. “Well, towards the end of the song I do this thing—” He hums it.

“Yeah, yeah. The adlibs over the chorus.” Zayn sings it quietly back at him. “What about it?” Back in the day he watched some of their live performances of _Drag Me Down_ , mostly to hurt himself and to watch them having a much better time without him because he was a pain and – of course – dragging them down. Amid the internal angst there was also part of him thinking that Harry sounded like he was straining his vocal cords, but hopefully that’s better these days.

“I just think it’d be really sick if we did it together.” Harry tilts his head to one side like a thoughtful bird.

“Together? Like, in tune? Or one after the other?”

Harry shrugs a shoulder. “Or we could improvise.”

That’s the sort of challenge that Zayn likes. He narrows his eyes at Harry. “All right then.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. I’ll come on—”

“Towards the end. Louis said he’d introduce you.”

“Yeah?” That takes away another bit of worry.

“Yeah.”

“And the other lads?”

Harry shrugs. “They’ll be fine with it.”

“Will they?” Zayn isn’t so sure about that.

“The fans will go nuts,” Harry points out, probably accurately. “People will stream it over and over again. The figures will be great. More money will be raised.”

“You should kiss Louis onstage,” Zayn says. “Make Larry finally real. That would make even more money.”

“A good idea,” Harry says. “Solid. Unique, even. But I’m honestly up in the air about getting kneed in the nuts by Louis in front of millions of people. I’ll think it over.”

“I mean,” Zayn says, “Larry _was_ real.”

“Fifteen years later and he still hasn’t let it go,” Harry says to absolutely nobody, like he’s in _The Office_ and talking to the camera. “I told you that in confidence, I fancied him for ten minutes when we first met and then he told me about his girlfriend and I immediately didn’t fancy him any more!”

“Whatever you say,” Zayn says, with extreme scepticism. 

Harry sighs, mock dramatic, and shakes his head. He does everything so deliberately, like he knows exactly which reaction he’s aiming for. Judging from the unexpected fondness that’s aching its way through Zayn’s chest, it’s working. “It’s okay,” he says, “I transferred my angsty teenage affections to someone else.” 

Zayn’s the one flushing this time. He feels heat pool through him, his ears, his armpits, the back of his neck. “Harry…” he says, feeling every bit of aching that he did fifteen years ago when they first met.

“Wow. Did you think I meant you? How _awkward_. Obviously I meant Niall,” Harry says, and cackles because he’s evil and terrible.

“I am going to push you down the stairs,” Zayn says, and Harry tips his head back and laughs.

*

There isn’t much time until they’re called to the stage. After they part ways when Harry gets waylaid by an earnest girl with a guitar, Zayn scrambles into clean clothes – his favourite black jeans, his old DMs, a soft vintage Pink Floyd shirt – and Lottie marches into his dressing room brandishing a tub of hair wax and a tube of something that makes his skin look immediately fresher and brighter. “You’re dehydrated,” she tells him as her brush feathers across his forehead. “You need to drink more water.”

“Everyone says that.”

“That’s because it’s true.”

“I was waiting in the airport for ages.”

“Were you?” She leans back a bit and looks into his eyes for the first time. “Louis said—” She looks guilty.

“No, tell me what Louis said.” His stomach feels unpleasant.

She sighs. “Don’t tell him I told you this.”

“Of course not.” Unless there’s a colossal argument later and he needs something to throw viciously in Louis’s face.

“He thought that maybe you didn’t want to come so you were using the bad weather as an excuse to get out of it.” Lottie isn’t quite making eye contact any more.

It really is a rollercoaster with this lot. Niall thinking he won’t turn up to the after party, Louis thinking he wouldn’t turn up at all. Harry being surprisingly okay, because maybe they’re all right now. Maybe they’re adults. Maybe they’ve moved on. He should probably feel more hurt than he does, but honestly it just makes him tired. “Well, I wasn’t,” he says.

“I don’t care either way,” Lottie says.

“But I wasn’t,” he insists.

She rolls her eyes in a way that’s mostly affectionate. “Honestly, I don’t care. Whether you’re with them or not tonight, everyone’s going to go totally mental.”

All those excited faces and screaming voices. At his concerts there was screaming, of course – there always is no matter who’s playing – but there was nothing on the scale of what it was like when he was in the band. Then again, the fans of the band are ten years older than they were before, so maybe they’ll be less inclined to screech out their love. 

“Hey. Zayn.” A voice from the doorway, a voice that Zayn would be able to pick out from millions of others.

Zayn turns to smile. “Liam.”

Liam’s face is thinner, his cheekbones more pronounced. The hair on his temples is receding very, very slightly, and it suits him, the same way that Harry’s going to suit long tangled grey hair around a widow’s peak when he’s sixty. But he’s smiling and Zayn sees real sincerity there that loosens some of the tightness in his chest. “All right, mate? Lotts, you done with him?”

Lottie takes a step back and surveys Zayn’s face. “Well, I’ve done my best. Hopefully I’ve covered up the worst of it.” She’s got the same cheeky glint in her eye as her older brother.

“Excuse me! What do you mean by that?” Zayn says, to play along, and she laughs before vanishing off down the corridor. “We all set, Liam? By the way, Liam, Megan, Megan, Liam. She’s my assistant.” He gestures at them both as an introduction. Megan’s eyes are wide as she looks up from her phone in the corner. Once upon a time she told Zayn that when the band had just got together, she was a fan – honestly it’d be harder to find an assistant who wasn’t ever a fan – and that Liam was her favourite out of the five of them. She’s probably internally freaking out, which is hilarious and not at all something that Zayn will mercilessly mock her for later.

Liam gives her his big puppy dog smile. “Hiya, Megan! Zayn, we’re needed soon. You coming?”

“Yeah.” Zayn checks his hair in the mirror one last time. “All right, I’m ready.”

“You look good.” Liam leans in for a hug, slapping Zayn’s back gently.

“So do you. How’s Bear?” They’re walking shoulder to shoulder down the corridor now towards the stage, and people are getting out of their way. It’s like being in The West Wing, except a version with concrete floors and ripped jeans and tense people speaking into mic headsets and girl bands practising their harmonies behind closed doors. 

“He’s brilliant!” Liam’s face lights up. “He’s in the audience with my mum and dad. You can meet him later.”

“I’d love to,” Zayn says honestly. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it for sound check.”

Liam shakes his head, glancing sideways. Zayn wonders if he doubted him too, but his eyes are as honest as ever. “It’s all right! I know what it’s like with bad weather. You remember your harmonies, right?”

“Just about. I’ve been practising.”

Liam’s eyes crinkle at the sides. “Have you really?”

“Just a bit.” Zayn feels self-conscious. 

“I love that,” Liam says, almost to himself. “It’s going to be epic to be together again. Have you thought about—”

“Payno!” Footsteps slapping on the floor. “Zayn!” 

Nerves again in Zayn’s stomach, which is so stupid, so stupid. But they dissipate when Louis pushes between them and loops his arms over their shoulders. “Lads, can you believe we’re all here?” They’re nearly in the wings now and the roar from the crowd in the arena sounds almost peaceful through the sets of closed doors between them, like the ocean on a windy day. A red-haired woman offers him a smile and hands him an ear piece and wire and mic pack. The earpiece is black with the words ‘BUS 1’ on it in yellow. When Zayn looks up he can see Louis’s eyes on him, almost nervous like he’s wondering if Zayn will like it.

Of course Zayn likes it. He loves it. He presses his lips together so his smile at Louis isn’t too insane and emphatic as he slots the earpiece in and clips the mic pack onto his jeans. “What’s yours?”

“Almost the same.” Louis comes a step closer so Zayn can see. BUS 1 in red. 

“Fuck,” Zayn says, with feeling. He feels as though he’s been falling and then caught with gentle hands.

“I’ve got a bear on mine,” Liam says.

“Excuse me, Liam, but we’re having a moment here,” Louis says gruffly.

Liam laughs as he turns away. Zayn lets his gaze follow him and his heart jumps as Harry appears, his own mic pack and earpiece in his hands, followed by Niall, who raises his eyebrows with a little surprise at the sight of Zayn. “Hello there,” he says, and approaches ready to shake hands, as though they’re two dads meeting on the side of the pitch at their sons’ football game, or two lads whose girlfriends are best mates and who don’t have much in common themselves, or two colleagues approaching each other tentatively because they know they’re both in line for the same promotion. No matter how exactly it is, the way that Niall comes over to him is not reminiscent of the way that they used to be, the years that they shared, and the ways that they knew each other. 

“What the fuck?” Zayn says. He’s not always amazing with physical contact but he knows exactly what to do now. He takes Niall’s hand and pulls him closer, almost off balance, into a hug. Niall’s stiff as a board against him for a moment before relaxing into him, slapping his back before peeling himself away. “Sorry,” Zayn says as Niall rights himself, “I just – that felt weird – I know we haven’t…”

“No, I know, I get it.” Niall frowns. “It’s just been a while.”

“Since anyone hugged you? Understandable, mate. You’re disgusting,” Louis says.

There’s a reluctant smile starting to play on Niall’s lips. “Dickhead.”

“No, you,” Louis says. Behind him, the red-haired woman says “Excuse me. Five minutes to go.”

Zayn’s fingers are starting to go numb. Sometimes when he went onstage with the band he felt as though he was forgetting how to walk, like he had pins and needles in his legs and his tongue was made of cotton wool. Admittedly that was probably because he was usually a little stoned, but he always thought back then that the weed helped. At times it probably did – mellowed him out so he could get through a day of interviews without losing his shit – but now he knows that for him, using anything like that as a crutch is a bad idea. He knows that mostly because of an excellent therapist and anti-anxiety medication that he gets along with. _But I don’t want to go on any pills_ , he remembers saying mutinously to the doctor that suggested them. He remembers feeling as though there was somehow a way that he could battle through it himself. _I don’t want to change who I am. I don’t want to rely on anything. I don’t want to be medicated._ The way that the doctor frowned at him is still seared into his memory. There had been so much care there on her face, care in a dispassionate and detached way, not the panicked way that his mum would always ask him if he was eating enough, not the irritated way that his publicists would ask him if he was okay to perform yet, not the desperate way that Gigi – back then, when she was still in his life – would tell him off for not answering her messages. The doctor had said, after a moment, _But you’re already medicated. You’re medicating yourself with marijuana. And right now, it isn’t working for you_. And in hindsight, he knows now that he held out too long without his medication. It hasn’t changed who he is. It’s just made everything a little easier to cope with. His fingertips might be a little numb, and he has butterflies in his stomach, but at least he isn’t in a toilet cubicle shitting his guts out or sitting in the back of a taxi on his way to the airport with his head in his hands and a deep sense of self-hatred roiling through his body. 

“Lads,” Louis says, and they gather around him automatically, the way they always used to before a show. Zayn feels Liam’s arm around him and, a second later, Niall’s. “I want to say thank you,” Louis tells them, his blue eyes catching the light overhead. “My mum would…”

There’s a moment of quiet while he gathers himself. The world seems to have become smaller, to have turned itself into nothing but the space between the five of them. Zayn thinks of Louis’s mum, of her kindness and her generosity and the way that she told Louis to get back in touch with him. He can’t fathom the goodness of a woman who knew she was dying and who used a few moments of the precious time she had left to make sure that a little happiness was restored to his life. He’d like to think that she did it for him as well as for Louis. Her generosity was so endless that it must be true.

Louis releases a breath. “Sorry, lads. It’s been an emotional day.”

“She’d be so proud of you,” Liam says earnestly.

“Yeah?” Louis says, half desperate, like ten years later he still hasn’t stopped wondering. Zayn supposes that maybe he never will. That’s the nature of grief and a life unfinished.

“Yeah. The man you are, Lou, the father you are to Freddie, the husband you are to El,” Niall says.

“You’re a good and kind person,” Harry chips in. “She was so proud of that.”

There’s nothing else for Zayn to say, really, so he just adds, “She was brilliant. And we love you, mate.”

“I love you all too,” Louis says croakily. “Thanks so much for being here. She would have fucking loved today.”

“She would have been doing that little clapping dance she always did, right in the front row,” Harry says, and they all laugh affectionately, the sadness dissipating a fraction, their arms around each other loosening.

“Come on,” Liam says, and looks at the rest of them before letting out a note. Niall seems to twig what’s going on first: he harmonises effortlessly, and then Harry joins in. Louis’s voice is clear and high and finally Zayn lets out a note too, blending seamlessly into these four voices that he used to know as well as he knew his own. It feels like slipping into a warm bed on a cold evening. The sound is so good, so clean and pure—

And then it fades away. Across from Zayn, Harry opens his eyes, his gaze half-drowsy, and he smiles. There’s something intoxicating about his eyes; there always was. Towards the end of the band, before he left, Zayn’s frustration with him grew. Behind closed doors they’d talked about what the two of them would do once the band was done, they decided together that after Four they’d refuse to do another album, another tour, that they’d end it on a high and while everything was still bearable. And then Harry had agreed with the others behind Zayn’s back, signed the contract when he’d promised not to, and Zayn had been dragged along on yet another ride that he didn’t want to be on. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the band, or the other boys. It was that he was exhausted, his body and his mind and his heart. He ached for his own home and for evenings spent on his own sofa, of being able to plan his own days – or not plan, which is in his opinion even more fun. But even when Zayn was deeply upset with him, right down to his bones, when he was trying hard to be aloof and unconcerned – even then, Harry would touch his arm or look at him with those eyes or give him that smile and he’d find himself getting lost all over again. 

Harry’s lips part a little; he presses them together and then the corner of his mouth rises into an almost-smile. One of Zayn’s greatest issues has always been paying far too much attention to Harry Styles’s mouth, and it looks like that particular life trend is not set to end today. 

Then he finds himself. Finds his voice. He clears his throat. “Right, lads. Let’s go.”

*

When he’s by himself backstage, Zayn watches the monitor carefully. Jon, Sandy, Dan and Josh gather onstage behind the black curtain, settling down with their instruments, adjusting guitar straps, throwing smiles at each other. He forgot that it was just as much a reunion for them as it was for him and the other lads. In a row there are four microphone stands, and Zayn watches the boys trickle out onstage. Harry wraps his hand around his mic like he’s testing the way it feels in his hand. Niall points out something that makes Liam laugh, and Louis looks oddly serious, his forehead furrowed as he looks down at the floor, sideways at Harry, the other way at Liam and Niall. A lack of confidence maybe, nerves – Zayn hopes that isn’t the case, but it’s hard to know what’s going on inside Louis’s head sometimes. Maybe it’s just that this is the first One Direction show that his mother will never hear about. Zayn glances over at the Johannah’s Wish poster blu-tacked on the wall and finds himself relaxing at the sight of her photo, at the warmth of her smile. It’s odd that she’s not here, but that warmth still is. The way Louis laughed every time he phoned her, and the things he said to her, the openness – Zayn’s always been close to his mum but he would never have dreamt of letting her into his life the way that Louis let Jay into his. It will never stop being absolutely, horribly shit that she’s gone, that she’s not out there in the world living her life and loving her children and enjoying the feeling of the sun on her face. Zayn looks at her for a moment longer and feels his resolve strengthened. This show will be great. This show will be the best. This show will honour her, and make money for causes that she loved. This show will make her proud, wherever she is now.

In the auditorium, the music fades. It was some old seventies white people song that Niall and Harry probably chose, but it wasn’t too bad. He didn’t hate it. There’s an answering scream like the roar of a tidal wave. Zayn’s throat is tight and he bites his knuckle as he watches the monitor. Liam bounces from foot to foot. Harry looks thoughtfully outward, and Niall shakes his head like he’s a dog breaking the surface of a lake. The first chord of the song sounds, and Louis finally looks up. The curtain shoots upward. The screaming goes stratospheric. A bleak, familiar wave of despair floods over him, just like it used to at the start of One Direction concerts. He exhales through his nose to push it away. And Harry starts to sing.

“Zayn. Time to get to the stage.”

He turns and the red-haired woman – God, he should have asked what her name is, he bets Harry did, he bets Harry knows her star sign and how she takes her coffee by now – is standing there with a patient smile. It’s a short walk to the wings and when he gets there a microphone is pushed into his sweaty hands. He can hear the chorus of the song onstage. He really doesn’t dislike _Drag Me Down_. If he’d known that was what their next single would be, maybe he wouldn’t have left – okay, he would, but he would have hesitated for a few seconds longer. He likes the beat, and the structure of the song. He likes its energy.

On stage, the chorus comes to an end. He knows from listening to the song over and over on the plane that this is where the backing cuts down and Liam has a solo. But instead there’s Louis’s voice, tough and triumphant, his Donny accent still so strong after years and years away from Yorkshire: there’s Louis saying, “And for the first time since 2015, let’s welcome back to the stage – it’s our good friend Zayn Malik!”

It’s now. It’s now that it has to happen. For a second his legs don’t work and then miraculously they do. He turns the corner out of the wings and onto the stage and raises his hand in a wave. The screaming hits him like a wall – that’s exactly what it’s like. It’s like the time Gigi tried to teach him to drive and he pressed the wrong pedal when he was attempting to reverse and he smacked her car forward straight into her garage wall. But the shocked silence the second after that, right before she started to laugh and he started to apologise, that was nothing like this. The music is throbbing through his earpiece and the roof of the arena is so high that when he glances upward he feels as though he might be about to float up into it. 

But there grounding him are four faces, four smiles, four sets of arms reaching out to pull him into the midst of them. He doesn’t remember the last time before today that he was hugged by four people at the same time. Sometimes now when he goes home even his sisters seem tentative with him, which is probably his own fault for living in another country and not coming home often enough. His nieces and nephew hardly know who he is. But there are so many different kinds of family, people who will be there for you even after so many years apart, and this is one right here: the five of them alone together surrounded by thousands of people, brothers in song. There have been so many times that they hurt each other since they met, but right now all that Zayn can process is how glad he is to have his friends back.

They break apart and Harry is next to him, his smile as bright as the lights above them. The bridge builds and then the song falls into the chorus. Zayn can feel the vibrations of the drums deep inside his chest, and beside him Harry screws his face up as he hits a high note. Zayn has listened to those riffs a hundred times and it’s so easy to join in, harmonising a couple of notes higher and letting his voice follow Harry’s downstream. Harry goes higher, his eyes on Zayn’s face and his smile ever broader, and Zayn goes higher, pushing himself, letting himself soar. When the song closes he’s out of breath and he can feel himself beaming, full of adrenaline. He could do anything. He could run a mile. He could yell and yell and yell, he could fuck all night. The roar of the crowd takes him over for the first time in so long. This, he realises, this: _this_ is what happiness feels like.

*

Singing _What Makes You Beautiful_ is, as ever, ridiculous. It’s weird that this many years later he still knows the song painfully well, like during those weeks and months they spent packed in minicabs driving between regional radio stations so that they could do acoustic versions of the song and talk over each other during interviews and play strange games. Years later, after the interviews turned into the same stale questions over and over again and the lists of things they wouldn’t do got more and more strict, he remembers beginning to miss those strange games. Harry flirting with interviewers, Niall giggling beside him, Liam and Louis squabbling in the car afterwards, Zayn in the middle of everything. He doesn’t know when the anxiety began. At the beginning he was content, or he thinks he was, anyway. 

That was in the pre-Perrie days, the days when they were still two to a hotel room – Niall having sex in one of the double beds while Zayn fucked another fan in the bathroom, all glaring neon lighting overhead, a sense of disbelief that this was happening at all, that this was his life now. The nights when he and Harry shared, or when one of them got the single room – not all of those nights, but some of them. The way that Harry’s smile would intensify, or how he’d tap Zayn on the arm as they were all heading to bed. They kissed for the first time when the band had barely begun, when they were at Harry’s stepdad’s bungalow. They’d been playing truth or dare and Harry had been the only one who admitted to ever kissing a boy. The others had been fine about it, but it had made Zayn feel shocked and sweaty and as if someone had punched him. He hadn’t been able to make eye contact with Harry for the rest of the evening. Later when they’d all been sprawled on the mattresses in the living room, when Liam and Louis and Niall had been sleeping between the two of them, Zayn had silently got to his feet and picked his way outside into the dark sticky summer night, standing barefoot on the patio beside the crystal clear water of the pool. He’d never known anyone with a pool before. He’d barely even known anyone who’d had swimming lessons. Swimming lessons were for people who went on holiday to places that had pools. Swimming lessons were for people who knew what it was like to fly in a plane. The water was both enticing and dangerous, which made sense because that was the vibe he’d got from being in a band in the first place.

And then Harry had come out to join him, all rumpled curls and sleepy eyes. His skin was pale and smooth in the patio lights. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, and Zayn shook his head no, took a step closer to the pool. He wanted to sit down on the edge of it and swish his legs in the water but part of him was worried that Harry would think it was hilarious to push him in, and there was nothing that would be more embarrassing than the others finding out he couldn’t swim when for them it was such a basic thing. “Me neither,” Harry said. He was only wearing his boxers, one side hitched higher on his hip than the other as though he’d been tossing and turning. “Don’t – all right, just listen. You’ve been weird with me since…” he began, and let the silence hang between them in the air. “If we’re going to be a band,” he said, with difficulty that was evident to Zayn even then, “we need to – you need to accept all parts of me, and—”

“I do accept all parts of you,” Zayn said too quickly. He didn’t mind gay people. His mum’s hairdresser was gay and his auntie on his dad’s side hadn’t said anything about being gay but Zayn had his suspicions because she’d brought her housemate Susan to Eid for eight years running now. It was just that the thought of Harry being gay had been too much. He had beautifully shaped hands with delicate fingers and Zayn had found himself noticing them during the day: when he’d made them all cups of tea, when he’d pushed his messy hair back off his face, when he’d been flipping a coin methodically between his fingers. Zayn had thought about those hands and what they would feel like on his skin. He’d always known in a way that he’d wondered things that some of his mates hadn’t wondered about. That he’d wanted things that he’d be ashamed to say aloud. That sometimes he felt as though a certain path in life was calling to him, and that he was afraid his family wouldn’t love him as much if he chose to go down it. 

There was a pause. Harry’s eyes were still on him as though he was a puzzle that he was trying to work out. Zayn turned away, looked up at the sky and then at the ground. “Sometimes I think,” Harry said after a moment, “that you—”

Zayn’s heart lurched in his chest. It was sweet and unbearable, and he felt as though he was teetering on the edge of something unimaginable. “Don’t say it.”

“Look at me,” Harry finished.

Zayn closed his eyes.

“It’s all right.” The pressure of Harry’s hand on his arm. The warmth of him, his certainty, his closeness.

The next move was obvious. Zayn twisted away and jumped into the pool.

It wasn’t deep, he knew that. Everything would be all right. His feet would hit the bottom and then he’d push up and stand upright, the water lapping coolly around his shoulders. But instead he breathed in at the wrong time and ended up with a throatful of water and a searing pain between his eyes. His brain short-circuited and he opened his eyes underwater. The pool lights were on and half the world was glittering aquamarine and the other half was the dark sky seen through a layer of water, blurry and infinite. 

Arms around him. Warm wet skin, taut muscle. He closed his eyes again and when he broke the surface of the water he heard himself coughing and felt sharp squeezing pain in his temples. “For God’s sake!” Harry sounded out of breath. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know.” Zayn was at the side of the pool somehow and he found himself sagging against the wall, shivering as he blinked at Harry.

“You must be mad.” Harry sounded almost admiring.

“Thank you.” Zayn shuddered in another deep breath and coughed again. He was aware of Harry’s gaze on him almost like a weight, careful and curious. “Harry, I’m absolutely fine with you being—”

He waited for Harry to put in whatever word he wanted to use: gay, bisexual, maybe there was something else that Zayn hadn’t heard of, but Harry just shrugged crossly, as though he wasn’t sure either and he was annoyed about it.

“It just freaked me out because…”

He hadn’t been able to get the words past his lips. Fifteen years later, more, Zayn still remembers it so clearly: the dark sky above, the cold clear water, Harry next to him. He remembers reaching out to curl his fingers around Harry’s arm. He doesn’t remember who kissed who first, but he remembers that Harry’s mouth was cool and that his lips tasted like chlorine. That it was messy with want and a complete lack of expertise. He remembers that it felt like breaking through the water’s surface again and finding cool sweet oxygen. He remembers that it was when he first began, really, to live.

And now they’re on stage, the pair of them, in front of thousands and millions more at home. Singing the song that they released less than a year later, the song that told the world that maybe the band could be something big. It’s such a ridiculous, fun song; he wants to laugh as he sings it and he can see that in the other boys’ faces too, their bright eyes, the quirked smiles on their mouths, the little jerky head movements Liam and Niall do at each other. Louis loops an arm around his shoulders when he sings his verse and points at him, and the crowd goes nuts. They line up in their triangle formation behind Harry and Zayn leans forward to tickle his sides. They do _Little Things_ next, and when Zayn looks over at Niall he sees his eyes glittering with tears as he looks out over the lit-up crowd. _No Control_ is more fun than he expected it to be, because he doesn’t have the best memories of that album or that tour, but he feels energy building up inside his chest anyway. Louis runs around the stage like a mad thing and Liam pogoes up and down and the way that Harry moves his hips is hypnotic. Really this is Louis’s song, and seeing him triumphant and glowing after his uncertainty backstage is worth every second. 

Towards the end of the song, Zayn and Niall share the best solo. He might have sung it on the record, but it feels fucked up to take some great lines away that Niall sang every night on tour for months. Songs change over time and this is what it is now. This is what they are now. Singing alongside a bandmate instead of over backing singers onstage is more satisfying than he’d thought it would be. Maybe it’s true that being around other people makes it easier to push yourself and better yourself. There isn’t time to wonder about it either way, because he’s too busy jumping around in circles and singing at the top of his lungs. At the end of the song he finds himself laughing up at the highest seats, way back in the arena. There’s an arm around his shoulders and a body slotting itself against his and Harry presses his mouth against his ear. “Feels good, right?” he breathes, and Zayn knows his smile will be enough of an answer.

 _Best Song Ever_ has always felt like a goodbye. They played it at the end of a lot of shows, after all – Zayn supposes they probably changed the setlist after he left but while he was still there, it was their goodbye to their audiences every night on tour. It was the song that they hummed as they ran backstage, high on adrenaline, bumping their hips into each other accidentally on purpose. It was the last song he ever sang with them, when he knew what he was about to do. The last lines tonight feel the way they always did. “It was the best song ever,” Zayn sings. It’s so bittersweet. “The best song ever.” All those days and nights with each other. All those unanswered messages. All those complicated feelings that he had no idea how to manage – and still doesn’t, some days. His throat tightens with something that feels like grief. Why didn’t they end the band when he could still manage to show up every day? Why did something so good have to turn into such shit in the end? Was it as bad as he remembers or has he spent so much time justifying his own actions to himself that he’s demonised something that he could have survived if he’d tried a little harder? Why didn’t they realise that he felt so bad? Why didn’t they care? Why did their friendships have to end as well as the band?

But they’re here now, at least. Demons have been exorcised. Old arguments have been laid to rest. A line has been finally drawn underneath that time in their lives. They’re happy now, the five of them, in their own ways.

As they line up to bow, arms over each other’s shoulders, he’s between Niall and Louis. Niall smiles sideways at him, that trepidation from earlier gone, and Louis leans in to roughly kiss his temple. In front of them in the audience, the lights stretch on for what feels like forever.

*

“Zayno! You’re coming to the party, yeah?” Louis is beaming at him, Eleanor hand in hand with him. 

“Maybe,” Zayn says, because he hasn’t decided yet and he’d like to give himself a little leeway.

“Come on,” Louis says, “don’t be miserable.”

Zayn almost snaps something at him but bites it back. Louis says harsh things and doesn’t mean them nearly all the time. Beside him, Eleanor rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” she says, more gently. “What Louis means is that we’d love to see you there.”

“That is what I meant,” Louis agrees. “Everyone’s coming. Even Harry.”

“Oh, well, if Harry’s going,” Zayn says, although he does feel a flicker of interest at that.

“Don’t pretend it doesn’t make a difference to you, lad,” Louis says. The lines around his eyes are deeper than they used to be, but Zayn likes them: they’re the sort of lines that Jay had too, the sort of lines that make it look like Louis smiles a lot. “Look, we’ll see you later, all right? Did you meet Freddie, by the way?”

“I did,” Zayn says. Freddie was digging through a big tub of sweets with Bear in the green room, and it was obvious whose sons they were right away. Bear has Liam’s dark brown eyes and Cheryl’s deep dimples, and from what he could tell, Freddie has Louis’s mischievous streak. Seeing Liam and Louis’s sons together talking, Bear’s dark head bent towards Freddie’s sandy hair and his eyes admiringly on Freddie’s face, was another flush of strange, complicated feelings. “He’s a lovely lad, Lou. You must be proud.”

“I am.” He looks at Eleanor. “We are. Us and Bri, we’re all very proud.” 

“I thought…” Zayn clears his throat. “If you lot are ever in New York, you could – I mean, I’ve got space, you could always come over, you could stay…”

“We’d love that,” Eleanor says immediately. “And when you’re in London, Zayn – we have a Sunday roast whenever we’ve got the time. And we’d love it so much if you came over.”

They did that sometimes, the two of them and him and Perrie, when they all lived close to each other: they’d have a roast on a Sunday and spend the whole day together. Louis would make the potatoes the way his mum showed him, Eleanor was in charge of the veg, Perrie would make pudding – Eton mess, or chocolate cake, or apple pie. Zayn always sorted the meat, rubbing oil and herbs over it. Sometimes they’d be too busy watching films and talking to cook, so they’d order pizza with extra garlic bread, or Chinese food. There are a lot of things he’s forgotten about Perrie and what being with her was like, but he still knows her Chinese order like the back of his hand. If he had time, and if he was in the kitchen by himself without anyone hanging over his shoulder, he’d make his mum’s chicken biryani for everyone. Those lazy afternoons are some of his favourite memories even now. They’re another thing that he didn’t realise he was giving up the day he left the band. 

“That sounds great,” he says quickly, and watches some of the tension fall away from around Louis’s mouth. He claps Zayn on the shoulder and then the two of them are off. At the end of the corridor Freddie springs from a dressing room and Louis bends down to talk to him before laughing at something he’s saying and leaning down to kiss him on the forehead. He’s off home, Zayn expects, while the adults go to their party. He’d thought that maybe he would have kids by now, and yet somehow he’s single and further away from having a family than he’s been since he was twenty-one. Maybe he could do it by himself: he could hire a surrogate, or he could adopt. There are lots of kids that need a good home. Maybe.

He huffs out a breath and goes into his dressing room. He showers quickly and changes into fresh clothes. When he’s ready Megan’s got a car waiting for him. She’s done something with her hair and makeup: she looks more sleek and glossy than she did before and he’s pretty sure that she’s found some tighter jeans somewhere. “Are you going to flirt with Liam at this party?” he asks her as they slide into the car and she punches him hard on the arm and screeches “Shut up!” through her teeth, so apparently the answer is a resounding yes.

The party is at a club in Soho. He’s never been to this particular venue before: if he’s honest, he’s never been big on clubbing, but aside from that he hasn’t been out-out in London for years. He wouldn’t know if this club is new or not, but it doesn’t look it: the hall carpet is red and marred by years of footsteps and the wallpaper is gold and navy striped, all shabby chic and deliberately worn out. Everything is gilt-edged and when he catches his reflection in a mirror he looks older than he imagined himself. From downstairs music is pulsing and as he follows Megan down the steps he can smell a heady fragrance, something spicy and heavy with incense and alcohol.

He was never much of a boozer. If he was going to get out of it, he always chose weed – coke fucked his head up and he’s always been slightly scared of what’s actually in pills. But he crosses to the bar, asks for a cocktail – “Anything with whiskey in it, please,” he says, and turns on whatever charm he has so that the bartender gets a wiggle on – and then, once his drink is in his hands, he surveys the room and wonders where exactly he can go and who he should talk to.

There are other musicians there, of course, other people who played in the show, and he recognises some girls who he’s pretty sure are models. One of them is gorgeous, blonde and leggy with tits that he wouldn’t mind pressing his face into, but this definitely isn’t the night for that. He’s planning to spend a bit of time with the boys, to try to get Niall to smile at him again with sincerity, to laugh outside with Louis in the smoking area even though he doesn’t smoke any more, to catch up with Liam for real and to make sure he’s okay as he seems to be. And as for Harry – he’ll wait and see.

There’s some bright young thing doing a DJ set that isn’t half bad. As it turns out, Megan’s Twitter friends with one of the junior publicists who worked on the show, and she runs off so they can dance together. Zayn exchanges a few awkward words, shouted over the music, to someone who worked on their old management team and who sent him some pretty shitty emails back in the day. Caroline Watson comes in and almost loses her mind when she sees him, running over to give him a rib-crunching hug that makes him feel guilty because he definitely hasn’t been the most involved godfather to Brooklyn. “I’ve missed you!” she says, her hands on the sides of his face, and the guilt eases off as she starts asking him questions about if he’s still enjoying New York, and if he’d ever consider moving back to London and how his mum and dad are and if he’s in the studio at the moment – yes, maybe, fine, yes. 

He asks about Brooklyn, who is apparently a teenage terror – “That’s how she’s supposed to be though, right?” he asks, and Caroline heaves an over-exaggerated sigh and rolls her eyes before laughing. There isn’t any awkwardness between them, which is odd because he’d assumed there would be. He’s been over to her house when he’s been back to London to see Brooklyn, he’s sent extravagant birthday and Christmas presents, but since they had that shitty, awkward conversation in which they mutually decided that it was best for him to get a new stylist, he’s assumed that they’d no longer get on and that their relationship would be tainted forever. Turns out, that isn’t the case.

Helpfully, she sticks with him by the bar. She points shamelessly at people and whispers in his ear about who they are – an up and coming singer who’s supposed to be the new Sia (“There’s no such fucking thing as a new Sia, Sia’s not _dead_ ,” Zayn says too loudly on account of the cocktails they’re both drinking probably too quickly), and a boy band who don’t look old enough to shave let alone old enough to get into the party (“I heard that they might be even worse than you lot were,” Caroline says, and sniffs significantly), and a guy in a perfectly cut velvet blazer who’s somehow managed to find a bottle of champagne that he’s holding carelessly by its neck. “That bloke, he went out with Harry for a bit,” she says, stirring her drink with her straw.

“Did he?” The man is tall, taller than Zayn is and probably taller than Harry is too, and he’s got a tangle of dark hair that’s pushed back off his forehead in what Zayn thinks is an arrogant way, like he thinks he’s so busy and important that he doesn’t need to waste any time combing his hair. 

“Yeah, they were together for eighteen months.” Caroline’s eyes are on him. “He’s a designer.”

“Of what, crap hairstyles?” Zayn says accidentally.

Caroline laughs, clearly more at him than with him. “You’ve had enough of those that you can’t really comment.”

“Rude,” Zayn says. He’s pretty sure that he’s never had a bad hairstyle in his life, but he’ll leave that alone in case she says something mortally wounding. It’s disconcerting that Harry had a boyfriend he didn’t even know about for so long. When they were in the band together, he never really had a long, serious relationship. He went out with Taylor for a tumultuous couple of months, and Caroline Flack early on, although everyone thought that was weird. There was Kendall, although that wasn’t a big deal from what he heard from Gigi, and there was Nick on and off. There was Xander, but they didn’t talk enough at that point for Xander to be an issue or a big topic of conversation. Harry would just smirk, the corner of his lips tilting upwards, as he intently replied to texts and wandered away to answer phone calls, and Zayn would silently seethe, his whole body feeling as though it was curling up angrily at the corners. At least he’s been living in ignorant bliss instead of feeling sick with jealousy this whole time, although it’s definitely crazy that Harry still manages to keep such a tight lid on his personal life. And thinking about it, it’s unfair that even now after ten years Zayn still feels bitter and angry at this man who Harry was with for eighteen months. He wants to stand beside him and ask Harry “If you’d had the choice, who would you have picked?” and he wants to ask Harry who was better, whose dick he enjoyed sucking more, who he thought about more often at night. 

He really needs to get a handle on this possessiveness.

He swallows it down and turns back to the bar. He needs another drink.

*

He gets drunk enough to dance, although not drunk enough to get sloppy. The playlist isn’t his sort of thing – it’s easy to tell that Louis had a big hand in what songs are being played, but the bright side is that it’s much easier to dance to music that involves a lot of guitars without looking like a prick. Jumping up and down to _Chelsea Dagger_ is a lot less embarrassing than attempting to be smooth and rhythmic to any of the stuff he usually listens to. Louis is flushed and happy and reaches for Zayn whenever he’s nearby, to loop an arm around his shoulders and dance with him and make faces at him. He leans in and shouts “Did you have a good time?” over the music. Zayn nods yes and Louis says, a little more staccato, “Do you think she’d be proud?”

“So proud, mate,” Zayn says, and pulls Louis into a real hug. Louis grabs at the back of his shirt, hands fisted in its fabric, and Zayn feels him press his face against his shoulder. The music seems to have faded. He kisses the side of Louis’s head and rests his cheek against it and thinks of his own mum: she’s probably asleep in bed right now but usually when he imagines where she is and what she’s doing he thinks about her when he was younger, bustling around the kitchen, getting everyone off to school and checking lunch boxes and PE kits and finding people’s shoes and shouting at him for finishing his homework during breakfast. He thinks of her as moving and being, smiling and snapping. Although he doesn’t see her as often as he should, knowing that she’s well and happy in the world is a security blanket he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to shake off. If his mum ever dies – he knows there’s actually no ‘if’ about it, but ‘when’ makes him feel like he’s about to pass out – he knows that he’ll be a mess. He knows that Jay would be proud of Louis but Zayn is too. Getting over a grief like that doesn’t seem doable. It’d take years of battling through storms, head down against the wind, tears dried to salt on devastated cheeks. The fact that Louis has made something good out of it is incredible. 

This hug is a slow dance, almost. Their feet are still moving, although they’re not in time with the music any more. Zayn holds Louis tight to him and strokes his hair. The lights above them are blinking. “I missed you so fucking much,” Louis says through gritted teeth against Zayn’s collar, and Zayn says, “I know. I know. Me too. I’m here now.”

He holds him for a moment longer. The music changes from a thudding beat into something fractionally more gentle. Then Eleanor appears, her sleek dark hair shining a thousand colours and her mouth downturned with worry. “I think he’s had a few,” Zayn mouths to her, and she nods sympathetically. When Louis leans against her there’s something about the two of them that fits so well. It’s been so many years between them and so much love shared. Zayn has thought he had that a few times and in the end it never worked out. It will never work out. He looks at them and then he turns away. From across the bar Harry’s looking at him, brow furrowed and worried, his face half in shadow.

It’s been a long time since he went out into the smoking area, but he does it anyway. On the way there he catches Megan, coming out from the ladies’ loo; “You all right?” she asks, grabbing his sleeve, and he nods and smiles at her in a way that must be convincing because she lets him go. In any case, he isn’t _not_ all right. He just feels a bit lost, but that isn’t anything new. A little fresh air will help, but even before he opens the door into the smoking area he smells weed. Not a particularly good strain, he can tell that already, but it’s still immeasurably attractive. There were days when he would smoke and all his problems would seem insignificant, like stones skimming over the surface of a lake. Other days, he’d smoke and it was as if parts of his brain were being lit up and highlighted and not working properly. He was paranoid sometimes, and believed the worst in people, and it’s only recently that he realised that wasn’t actually part of his real personality. 

When he gets outside he doesn’t know what he’s expecting to see, but Liam and Niall looking guilty and sharing a joint isn’t it. When Liam sees it’s him, he relaxes and says, “Thank God.”

“Who did you think it was going to be?” Zayn asks.

“Someone who might shout at us. Payno’s never stopped being a wimp.” Niall nudges Liam and Liam rolls his eyes. Niall holds the joint out to Zayn with a quirked eyebrow.

Zayn shakes his head. “No, thanks.”

“No?” Niall looks surprised.

“I’m not very good at doing things by halves,” Zayn explains.

Niall nods slowly but Liam looks as though he understands. Niall has always been better than the others at knowing where to stop – getting himself off to bed before he drank so much he was sick, doing cocaine a few times and then only ever again on special occasions, being clever with the girls he slept with so that he didn’t get a reputation as a ladies’ man or someone who indulged himself with groupies, although Zayn knows for a fact that he did, many times. Liam was always worse at finding that line. All of the rest of them were, except maybe Harry. 

He sits down next to the pair of them. It isn’t exactly warm outside but considering he’s a fair few drinks down, it isn’t so bad. Fall in London – autumn in London – isn’t something he’s been around for in a while but it’s definitely better than he remembers. When they were in the band, they often spent November in the UK: he remembers grey days, mist stretching across the fields behind his house, air that was clogged with rain waiting to fall. He spent hours in his little shed outside the house playing games, or inside with his spray paints. It felt odd to crave home and then finally be home and to feel no reason at all to be there. But tonight the sky is clear: he can see the stars just about, even though they’re in the middle of the city and there’s a lot of light pollution. The moon is a gentle golden crescent cradling some wistful drifts of cloud, and with the door shut behind them it’s almost quiet. Quieter, anyway. Quiet enough.

“You honestly didn’t mind me being there tonight, right?” he asks, wanting to torture himself as always.

“Not at all,” Liam says.

“I had my doubts beforehand,” Niall says calmly, and shrugs when Liam looks at him with his mouth agape. “What? Me and Zayn, we were always honest with each other, he won’t mind me saying that.”

Zayn does mind, but he can’t say that now. Instead he shrugs and tries to smile, but he knows that it definitely looks weird. “I appreciate your honesty,” he lies.

“You’ve just distanced yourself a lot over time,” Niall explains.

“So has Harry,” Liam points out.

“Not in the same way,” Niall says. 

“I would bet a million pounds,” Liam says, “that these days Zayn would be more up for a proper reunion than Harry any day of the week.”

“I don’t know about that,” Zayn says. The thought of a real reunion makes him uneasy. Tonight onstage was great, but the workload that they used to have is terrifying these days now that he can make his own schedule, and he knows that he’d miss his own music. There are downsides to being a solo artist, and he feels half-desperate to have the boys in his life again, but equally he loves writing his own stuff, he loves coming up with his own beats, he loves designing his own merch and putting his own stamp on everything he does. He knows it’s wanky and stupid to other people, but artistic integrity means a lot to him. He’s sure it does to the others as well, but there’s something that would feel dishonest about smiling onstage as part of a band for an extended tour again.

“Exactly,” Niall says. “I mean, Harry probably wouldn’t be up for it, but Zayn, I know you were hard to get in touch with for this.”

Zayn grimaces in agreement. “To be fair, I’m not just hard to get in touch with for this. I’m hard to get in touch with generally. On purpose,” he adds, just in case they think he’s incompetent at being a person, which he is, but not in this respect.

“I just thought that it might not work tonight,” Niall says. He still sounds so even-tempered and matter of fact. “I liked singing some of your stuff after you left, and I didn’t really want to give it back. And when you were with us, sometimes it made me upset that you weren’t enjoying what we were doing.”

“But Harry didn’t—” Liam begins, and then he sighs. “I suppose that he was better at faking it.”

Zayn feels himself quirk an eyebrow in agreement. He knows that too well. 

“But don’t get me wrong,” Niall says suddenly, making eye contact with him, “it was great tonight. And it did make me think about all the good times we had – the best times we had. It was the right decision – it was only beforehand that I was uncertain. Once we were all in the same room again together—”

“Magic,” Liam says, and smiles. 

“Magic,” Niall echoes.

“It was,” Zayn agrees, although it aches. “Listen, I – I know that it’s been a while, but I’m hoping that it can all be water under the bridge…”

“Fine by me,” Liam says immediately.

Niall looks down at the stub of a joint in his hands. “The thing is,” he begins.

Zayn can feel himself flushing. He’s about to get rejected for a friendship for the first time since he was six years old and Tahir from two streets down said his Scooby Doo tracksuit bottoms were stupid. “Spit it out,” he says bad-temperedly.

“The thing is, you can’t just say, let’s be friends, and then automatically be friends, all right?” Niall’s flushed too, spots of red high on his cheeks. “That isn’t how it works. I’m fine with you, we’re cordial, we’re good, I’m not cross, but I thought we were friends years ago and then it was months and months before you even thought about messaging or phoning…”

“I had a few things going on,” Zayn snaps.

“Well, so did we!” Niall says, a little louder now. “We had a whole tour to do! And everyone asking us about you, and all the fans still wanting us to be friends, and all of us having to lie about it because you’d fallen off the fucking radar. I wanted the best for you but I didn’t know what to think, none of us did. Louis was a mess, Harry wasn’t talking to anyone, Liam was—”

“Very calm and sensible, thank you very much,” Liam says, clearly trying to diffuse the situation.

It mostly works. Niall cracks a smile. “Yeah, Liam, you weren’t so bad.”

“You lot didn’t get back to me, though,” Zayn points out, because he has to win this somehow. “If you wanted to talk to me so badly, you could have got back to me.”

“When you messaged us after months of nothing?” Niall snorts. “Really? Why should I talk to you only when you want to talk to me? That isn’t how friendship works.”

“There are a lot of things that happened that weren’t how friendship works,” Zayn points out. The words stick in his throat, savage and uncomfortable. _I wasn’t eating. You didn’t ask me about it. Whenever I had problems with Perrie you just walked away. When I got abuse, you told me to ignore it, even though the abuse I got was racist and disgusting. I wasn’t well and none of you noticed_. “There were…” He can’t say it, even now, which is stupid. “Look, I wasn’t the only one that made mistakes. You weren’t the only ones who got hurt.”

A muscle near Niall’s eye twitches. “I do know that,” he says, a little quieter. “You think I don’t know that? I just don’t know how to do it, Zayn. You can’t just fall back into a friendship after ten years. I mean, I can’t, anyway. I don’t know how.”

“I’m going to be in London for a week,” Zayn says, which is a lie but he isn’t too fussed because he can turn it into a truth. He can stay in the little apartment he has in the centre of town, and have his mum and dad and sisters to stay. He can have that Sunday roast with Louis and Eleanor, and spend more time with Freddie and Bear. He can see Niall, if he’ll have him. He can repair this. They can all repair this. “I’m not saying we should all just fall into being mates again. But I do think…” He sucks in a breath. “I do think that we could go for a pint, and see what happens. Yeah?”

Niall’s silent for a moment. Liam’s eyes are on him, almost hungry, and Zayn understands that. Liam wants this too. He wants to continue to wipe out the mistakes they made and to stitch things together for a better future between them. Finally Niall says, “Yeah. All right.” Finally his smile is something that Zayn remembers from all those years ago. He smiles back, relieved, and Liam chants “Yay,” like a child. Niall rolls his eyes and tries to swat him over the back of the head.

There’s a creak then as the door opens. Zayn turns and there’s Harry standing there, looking hesitant. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Not really,” Niall says. “Just plans to go for a pint.”

“That’s nice,” Harry says, notably not inviting himself along. “I just fancied some air.”

Niall and Liam look at each other in a way that makes the tops of Zayn’s ears start burning. “We’re going to go back inside,” Liam says. “Get another drink, have a little dance.” He grabs Niall’s hand and spins underneath his arm.

When they’re alone, Harry looks at him and lets out a breath. “Hello.”

“Hi.” Zayn gets to his feet, for some unfathomable reason. Harry has always looked best in the sunlight: his skin has always glowed, his hair has gleamed, his eyes are at their most gorgeous. But right now in the moonlight he doesn’t look half bad either, all cheekbones and full lips. It’s been months since Zayn kissed someone who’s taller than him: he has seen men, of course he has. He always has, sometimes guiltily on the side of relationships with women, sometimes as almost-relationships of their own. He is dully aware that he has not always treated that side of himself with the respect that it deserves. But lately for some reason there hasn’t been anyone he’s had to lean upwards to kiss and he has to admit that he misses that. “You heading off soon?” He knows that Harry loves going out and he loves parties, but he was never the last to leave when that party involved the five of them. It was like part of him enjoyed being standoffish and distanced.

Harry shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah. Maybe. What about you?”

“No plans.” Zayn holds eye contact with him. “Free as a bird.”

“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.”

Zayn squints at him. “Is that _The Notebook_?”

“And what if it is?” Harry pretends to look outraged.

Zayn has to laugh. “You’re such a prick.”

“Back at you.” Harry’s smile fades a little. “Want to share a car back?”

Everything in Zayn’s body leaps with excitement at the same time. Playing it cool has never been harder. “Sure,” he says, as casually as possible, and together they move back inside. He finds Megan and tells her he’s leaving – she’s in a rented apartment close to his, so she just nods and says “Whooo!” right up in his face because she’s quite pissed. Then he finds the boys to say goodbye to them. Louis hugs him tightly, Liam makes him promise to call, and Niall smiles slowly and says, “That pint. I’m holding you to your word.”

“I promise I’ll be there,” Zayn says. He’s pretty sure that Niall doesn’t completely believe him, but that’s all right. Zayn doesn’t completely believe everything he says either. The only way to believe each other again in the end is consistency, and even then it might not work out. What he’s starting to learn is that it might be worth a try.

Outside the club there are photographers, which both makes sense and makes him want to die. They’re going to get so many questions about this, about their rekindled friendship, about leaving together, about whatever else—

And then they get into the car and it peels itself away from the kerb and he is somehow successful at pushing all of his worries out of his mind. Those problems aren’t really problems, and even if they are, they’re not going to be an issue for him tonight. He’ll tackle interviews with eye-rolls and with sheets of topics that they’re not allowed to ask him about. Every time the photos are reprinted, Zayn Malik leaving a club with former bandmate Harry Styles, he’ll get tweeted and asked about it… even thinking about it is exhausting. But he’ll deal with it another day. Right now, they’re masked in blissful quiet darkness for the first time all evening, and he realises suddenly that he’s tired. It’s been a long and adrenaline-filled day. 

“So.” Harry clears his throat. “Are we dropping you home?”

Zayn glances sideways at him. “You can if you want. My flat’s near King’s Cross.” He only chose it because it was central and close to almost everything, but as it turns out it’s still shit for airports. “Do you want to?”

There’s a moment of quiet, and then Harry turns to him and smiles slowly. “Not really. Thought I might show you my house.”

“I’ve seen your house a million times.” He hasn’t read anything about Harry moving, anyway.

Harry heaves out an exasperated sigh. “Well, you’ll just have to pretend to be polite. And act like you want to be there.”

Zayn finds himself laughing. “I’m pretty sure I’ll want to be there.”

“Yeah?” The lines of Harry’s face look somehow softer.

“Yeah.” Zayn gazes back at him. 

Harry sighs out a happy noise. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Really?” Harry looks surprised, which is fair enough. Zayn has spent a significant proportion of his adult life striving to not be single.

“Yeah.” Zayn scratches his chin. “I mean, I have seen people, I am – seeing people, now and then, but no one in particular.” 

“Why not?”

Zayn bats his eyelashes. “I was waiting for you.”

Harry’s silent for a moment and then he snorts. “Absolutely fuck off, Malik.”

“I will not. No, I just…” Zayn squints out of the window. The streets are emptying out as they get further away from the very centre of the city. From what he remembers of Hampstead at night, it’s full of pretty well-heeled people. There are fewer people who’ve just got out of work and who have accidentally turned a ‘quick drink’ into eight pints and a sneaky vomit in the gutter. Hampstead has more couples, more groups of friends, more people casually living their lives. He knows that sometimes he shuts himself away – if he goes out he tries to keep it as private as possible, he goes to people’s houses for parties, he goes to VIP sections of clubs. He hasn’t really spent much of his adult life sitting around in pubs. Sometimes he wonders what it’s like. 

“Zayn?” Harry asks.

“Sorry, I was just looking out the window. London never changes, does it?”

“Maybe slightly,” Harry says, “but it’s ever-changing, which means really that it’s always the same.”

“You’re making no sense, like usual.”

“Thank you. I’m going to take that as a compliment.” 

“You shouldn’t.”

Harry looks at him and they both laugh, which feels more comfortable than Zayn could have anticipated when he felt half sick with nerves earlier in the day. Across the seat Harry stretches out his hand and Zayn finds it with his own. They knot their fingers together and allow their joined hands to rest between them on the seat until the lights of Harry’s house beckon them home.


	2. TWO.

TWO.

 

Inside the house it’s too bright. Zayn groans as Harry turns on the light, dumping his backpack down on the floor beside the door before toeing off his shoes. It’s something that Harry was always strict about, which Zayn appreciated because he was strict about it too. It’s been so long since he was here but he still remembers the lines of Harry’s house clearly. There were days they spent here just the two of them, days of respite from touring and interviews and recording. Not many days, but enjoyable ones nonetheless, days that Zayn learned not to overthink at the time, days that he picked to pieces years later when everything was over. If they’d been flying back from somewhere and Harry had raised a questioning eyebrow before they landed, and Zayn felt those excited jitters in his chest at the prospect of it; if Perrie was home, and Zayn needed time away from the house and away from the ways he knew that he was failing her and she was failing him right back; sometimes even when Harry texted him late at night and there was something not quite right about the way he was expressing himself and Zayn had been able to work out easily that he felt lonely and odd. Those times, Zayn came over. They fucked. They showered together, kissed messily under the spray, hair plastered to their heads. They watched films, although there hadn’t been many that they’d both felt enthusiastic about putting on so they’d watched Toy Story and The Incredibles over and over again. Zayn tried to teach Harry how to play video games but he’d been awful at it. He bought oil paints and had them delivered to Harry’s house along with canvases and easels and they stood together underneath the clear roof of Harry’s conservatory, rain beating down on the glass, the light pale and grey, the heating on full blast so they could stand there with bare feet and shoulders in the almost-winter. Harry cooked for him: pasta with homemade pesto, roast chicken with rosemary potatoes, perfectly round poached eggs in the mornings. Zayn can cook too but there was something about Harry’s proud expression when he brought the plates over to his kitchen table that made him feel warm inside, so he let him do it.

This space. These rooms. Once Harry tripped up those stairs when they were dashing up to bed and cut his knee and Zayn had to put antiseptic and a plaster on it for him and they didn’t end up having sex, they watched three episodes of The X Files instead and then Harry fell asleep on the sofa and pouted and snored gently. Once Zayn left a ring on that hall table and then the next day he turned up at rehearsals and Harry was wearing it on a chain around his neck. He can see the corner of the sofa in the living room: once he had a terrible headache so he lay on that sofa with his head in Harry’s lap and Harry’s cool hands massaging the pain from his head, his fingers sure and certain as they rubbed through Zayn’s hair and over his skull. He remembers opening his eyes when the pain had eased and looking upward to find Harry gazing down at him with such open tenderness that he’d had to shut his eyes again and pretend he hadn’t seen.

He takes a breath. “It’s good to be back.”

Harry hangs his keys up on the rack by the door and starts to shuck off his coat. “It’s good to have you back.”

There’s a pause. Zayn looks at him and feels fear coil in his stomach at what they’re about to do and what he’s about to get himself into. Harry bites his bottom lip as he gazes back. His face, his sweet familiar face and the triangle of skin that Zayn can see where his shirt is unbuttoned, the smoothness of it, the dip at the bottom of his throat. His frustrating mouth and his hesitant eyes. 

Zayn moves towards him. Harry takes a step too, almost skidding in his socked feet. Their hands meet and Zayn looks down at their fingers, tangled together like they were in the back of the car. He can feel the heat of Harry’s body close to his and he can smell him too: clean sweat, new cologne that smells like the ocean, the same deodorant that he wore all those years ago. Harry’s hand feels the same as it used to, which is odd because in so many other ways he’s so different. He looks into Zayn’s eyes and the corners of his mouth press into a small smile as he raises their joined hands to his lips and kisses Zayn’s knuckles gently. They’re scuffed, full of old scars and new bruises from boxing, and the feather-light touch of Harry’s lips makes his knees weak. He had forgotten this gentleness of his. It makes him want to cry.

With his other hand he touches Harry’s hair, which is soft and tangled, strokes it back from his face with his thumb, and Harry turns his face so that he can brush his lips over the inside of Zayn’s wrist. Then against his skin he murmurs, “Come on. Let’s go upstairs.”

“Promise me you won’t cut your knee open,” Zayn whispers.

“Fuck right off,” Harry tells him, with a broad, relaxed smile, and somehow that’s it, the ice is smashed through: Zayn finds himself leaning forward to kiss him, arm sliding around his neck and pulling him in close. There’s a fraction of hesitation in Harry’s body before he almost sighs and gives himself over, pressing himself against Zayn like a tame tiger, kissing sweet and hard and sincere. When they break away from each other Harry’s eyes are starry and bright and his mouth is even more gorgeous than normal: flushed, pink, half-smiling. “Right,” he says, and laughs a bit, and finds Zayn’s hand again so he can pull him upstairs.

It’s all mostly the same: white walls, art that Zayn wants to take a closer look at later, wooden floors; and then things change when Harry opens his bedroom door and a cat springs unexpectedly out at them. “Evie! Don’t ruin the mood!” Harry says, and then the cat is followed by a second one, stretching its paws out and yawning. “Maisie!” Harry says. “Hello!”

“I didn’t know you had these!” Zayn crouches down and makes kissing noises so they’ll come over to him. “I mean, I heard about one of them, but… Two cats!”

Harry’s beaming. “Yeah! They’re great, aren’t they?”

“They are. Hi, babies! Hello, kitties!” One of them – Evie, Zayn thinks – twines herself around his knee and rubs her back against his leg. He tickles her under the chin. “Shall we just forget about the doing it,” Zayn suggests, “and play with the cats instead?”

“We could do both,” Harry says. “Although not at the same time.”

That sounds like a better idea. Harry herds the cats downstairs and Zayn hears the rattle of dry cat food being poured into bowls. In Harry’s bedroom there’s a huge soft purple cushion in the corner that’s covered in cat hair, and just inside his en suite door there’s a litter tray. He didn’t know that some time over the last ten years, Harry had become the sort of person who wanted to own pets. It’s the best possible news. On the chest of drawers there’s a photo of Gemma and Anne with the two cats on their laps, and behind them there’s a picture of Anne and Robin. There are other photos too, but they’re all of people that Zayn doesn’t know, which is disconcerting. There are so many people in Zayn’s own life these days that Harry doesn’t know, and so many ways that he’s moved on, but every time he finds out that Harry’s done the same thing it’s a bit of a knife to the guts. 

He checks his phone while he waits. His mum, asking why he didn’t tell his family about the performance. _Because I was worried I wouldn’t end up being able to force myself to get onstage and I’d disappoint you again_. Doniya, telling him he was amazing and asking if it means he’s friends with the other boys again. _Sort of. Not quite. Maybe never again_. Megan, commanding him to tell her when he’s home safe. He half-smiles and taps out a reply to her: _Not home, but I’m safe._

There are footsteps on the landing and he looks up from his phone. Harry’s there, his face more tentative now. He pushes the door shut behind himself and pushes his socked toes into the soft shag of the rug on the floor. “So,” he says. “Cats sort of ruined the mood, didn’t they?”

“They have a habit of doing that,” Zayn agrees.

“Do you have any pets?” Harry asks.

“I’ve got a cat called Dobby, but he’s hairless.” Zayn raises his eyebrows.

“Like a little gnome?” Harry asks.

“A bit. Like an elf.” He got custody of Dobby when he and Gigi broke up, because he was home much more often than she was. She came over every few days to see him – Dobby, not Zayn, who mostly hid in his bedroom, like Harry Potter making no noise and pretending he didn’t exist. Then the gaps between visits turned into weeks, and then the visits turned into nothing at all, which was understandable. Their break-up was hard on both of them: not because they hated each other by the end, but because they didn’t. Ending a relationship because it’s for the best and because it had become unhealthy and not because you’ve fallen out of love is traumatic. He’d thought that it would go smoothly because they didn’t hate each other yet, but as it turned out there was still a lot of crying and swearing and shouting. Sometimes he still thinks that Dobby liked Gigi more than he’ll ever like Zayn, but he thinks that about most people who knew both of them, so why should the cat be any different?

Harry smiles. “He sounds cute.”

“He is. He’s a brat but he’s cute.”

“Like me,” Harry says.

“A bit like you,” Zayn agrees, his heart fluttering against his ribcage. Harry looks gratified and then he takes a step towards Zayn and they’re kissing again, Harry’s hand knotted in the front of his shirt. His neckline is pulled tight and he likes it, the line of burning across the back of his neck. Kissing Harry again after all this time is a little like a relief, like part of him has been empty all this time and he hasn’t quite realised it. Being with him again is easy. He knows they’re good at doing this together. There are so many things that they’re bad at – having conversations, being honest, agreeing on essentially anything – but this – this, they can do. Harry bites his lip and mmms when Zayn gasps. He digs his fingertips into the curve of Harry’s arse as a recrimination and Harry wriggles against him. He leans back and pulls Zayn’s shirt off and lets his fingertips dance over Zayn’s chest, apparently fascinated by all the tattoos he hasn’t seen before. They linger over the mandalas where Gigi’s eyes used to be before moving over his stomach. Harry’s touch is delicious and sweet and Zayn leans in so that he can hold Harry’s face, the side of his jaw cupped in Zayn’s palm. Harry goes still and obedient immediately, just like Zayn knew he would, his eyes on Zayn’s face like he’s waiting to be told what to do next. Zayn leans in to kiss him, doing it with specificity, catching Harry’s bottom lip between his. Their mouths twist open at the same time, heads falling at the right angles, and Harry makes a noise in the back of his throat. Zayn had forgotten that he’s vocal.

“Come on.” Zayn breaks the kiss. Harry’s hands are still on his chest, his fingertips warmer now. He moves an arm, resting his forearm on Zayn’s shoulder, head tilted down as he looks at his chest, his curls falling in Zayn’s eyes. Zayn presses his forehead against Harry’s briefly. “Hey.”

“Just looking.” Harry touches the line of his collarbone and Zayn kisses the corner of Harry’s mouth. He feels Harry’s muscles tense before he turns his face to kiss him full on the lips again.

He strips Harry’s shirt off him, undoing it button by button, slow and thoughtful so he can feel the impatience leaping off Harry’s skin. He’s breathing heavily and Zayn touches the warm smooth skin of his chest and his stomach. The lines of his body are beautiful: the curve of his shoulders, the way his waist tapers inward. They’ve both had a lot of new ink since the last time they did this but Zayn doesn’t want to take the time to explore. Instead he pushes Harry back towards the bed and Harry moves with him, eager and awkward. He falls backwards and pulls Zayn with him and they land in a mess of limbs. His mouth is on Harry’s neck and so he kisses it, finds his pulse point with his lips, and feels Harry gasp in air, tightening a hand in the back of Zayn’s hair. He reaches a hand down to find the top of Harry’s trousers and manages to open them more smoothly than he’d anticipated. Harry lifts his hips so that he can twist the trousers off. His boxers come part of the way too, pulling down a little so Zayn can see that line of muscle that goes from his hip to his groin. He wants to touch it with his mouth, but instead Harry quirks his lips up into a smirk and says, “Oops,” as he kicks his boxers off after his trousers.

His cock is the same – of course it’s the same. Thick and perfectly shaped, hard against his stomach. Thinking about wrapping his mouth around it is enough to make Zayn’s breath catch in his throat. Harry always tasted so good, so clean and so him, and right now he looks incredible too. His arms are more defined than they used to be, there’s muscle corded in his forearms that wasn’t there ten years ago, and all the puppy fat on his belly is gone, replaced by years of yoga and working out and all that stupid gym stuff that Zayn never cared to join in. Breathless, Zayn drags his thumb over Harry’s lips and Harry opens his mouth, sucks it in, looks up to meet Zayn’s eyes like he wants to know exactly what sort of effect he’s having on him. Zayn lifts an eyebrow and Harry hums out a laugh around his thumb. 

Zayn shakes his head a bit. “Bastard.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, tilting his head backwards as Zayn kisses his neck again. He has always loved the way Harry smells. There’s something base and deep about the way he’s attracted to him, as though their pheromones match up. He kisses the hollow of his throat and the line of his collarbone and scrapes his teeth over Harry’s nipple, the way he always liked. Behind him, he’s dully aware that Harry’s toes are digging into the bedsheets, and he can hear him breathing too, heavy and full of want. He kisses his hipbone and lets his stubble scratch the softer flesh of his stomach. Harry reaches down to card through his hair with hands that are surprisingly gentle and hesitant. “Are you going to,” Harry begins, and Zayn says, “Do you want me to?”

“No one has ever turned down a blowjob in the history of the world,” Harry says, his cheeks flushed and lovely, “and I’m not about to start now.” 

Zayn laughs – he can’t help it, he never can with Harry. He wraps his hand around Harry’s cock and presses his mouth to the place where his leg meets his body, pressing kisses, open-mouthed and sloppy, more and more and then more. The more secret parts of the body, the ones hidden from light are the places that he and Harry were always good at exploring. The shadows: that’s been them, always, in the shadows, in the quiet. And now there’s tonight, naked and laid out under the light. Harry’s eyes are wide and green when Zayn looks up at his face. He’s about to take Harry’s cock into his mouth when Harry says, “Hey. Look, I just – can you fuck me, as well? Tonight?”

“I’m a bit busy right this second,” Zayn says. “You could ask me later. Nicely.” Then he sucks Harry’s cock into his mouth and looks up at him to gauge his reaction.

“Fuck,” Harry says. It’s actually more of a gasp, torn out of his throat, and he flops back onto the bed, his hands over his eyes, before raising himself up onto his elbows again like he can’t bear to not watch. He feels good in Zayn’s mouth, the weight and taste of him. He breathes through his nose, closes his eyes, swallows down until the tip hits the back of his throat. The first time he did that, he gagged and jerked back, and then Harry apologised about twelve times, and then they gave each other awkward handjobs instead. They were in the bathroom in the house they stayed in when they were contestants on The X Factor. It was the biggest bathroom Zayn had ever seen in his life, all marble and shining chrome, but it had also been messy and disgusting because nobody who lived in the house understood how to put their things away and how to not leave unfathomably long pubic hairs on the toilet seat. Harry had pushed him against the sink to kiss him and Zayn had had a moment of intense and strange clarity: _How is this my life now? Being kissed by boys in dirty bathrooms?_ And Harry had nuzzled at the side of his face and tickled his side just above his hip and he’d just let go so that he could enjoy it.

Thankfully he’s more of a pro these days. He fists the base so he can pull back, presses open-mouthed kisses to the head as Harry reaches out to touch his hair, gentle like he’s carefully not pushing his head down despite the fact that Zayn wouldn’t mind it at all if he did. He flicks a glance up at Harry that says _Hurt me if you want_ , but he knows that Harry would never dream of it. Probably if he asked specifically. Probably then he’d be into it, the way that Harry used to ask once upon a time, although he’d used his body and not his words – arching into Zayn’s hands when he pulled his hair and scratched his back, coming way too fast seconds after the first time Zayn held him down and spanked him. Harry has always been better at being the first one to be vulnerable.

“Zayn. Zayn, I don’t want to…” Harry’s face is shining and Zayn pulls back, licking his lips, knowing that Harry’s eyes are on his mouth. “Fuck me,” Harry says. It’s too urgent to be a request. He shifts away from Zayn and onto his hands and knees, all knotted up energy like he’s trying so hard to keep it together. 

For his own part, Zayn’s almost trembling. He’s so hard it hurts and the fact of Harry’s back and Harry’s arse and his leanly muscled shoulders is having more of an effect on him than he’d like to believe. For some reason, so are the soles of his feet: they’re slightly grubby and there’s a tiny circle of paper stuck to one of his heels, like someone’s been hole-punching documents and not quite careful enough with their debris. It’s oddly touching, his callused heel and the pale soft arch of his sole: Zayn strokes it with the tip of his finger and Harry says “Oh,” sounding almost surprised. 

“Oh?” Zayn asks.

“Nothing.” Harry ducks his head down. The nape of his neck, too: the bone at the top of his spine, his shoulder blades standing out like he’s still waiting for his wings to grow. Zayn reaches out to run gentle hands over his skin, the line of his spine and the firmer softer flesh above his hips. Towards the top of his back, Harry’s skin is like silk, and the peach fuzz at the base of his spine around his tailbone turns it to velvet. He touches Harry’s arse, draws a finger down between the hot line between his cheeks. Always responsive, Harry arches his back, pressing up towards him. Zayn holds onto his hip and lets his fingers bite in more than necessary so Harry gets the right idea, and he stills. 

When Zayn presses a spit-slicked finger inside him he hears Harry draw in a breath, staccato and sharp. “You okay?”

“More than.” Harry presses his arse up so that Zayn’s finger goes deeper. His skin is pale and smooth: it’s been a while since he did any naked sunbathing, like he did every now and then when they were younger, sprawled out on his front on a sunlounger beside their private pool, naked and asleep and gleaming as though his skin was made of sunlight. He’s always been lean but he’s also all curves: the muscles of his calves, his arse, his mouth, his hips, as though he was created specifically to feel incredible underneath Zayn’s hands. He pushes another finger into him and feels Harry’s muscles contract around him, adjusting to him. 

“When was the last time you did this?” Zayn asks.

“None of your business,” Harry says, before admitting, “It’s been a couple of months. I was seeing someone but he… God. Like I said, none of your business.”

“He was a bottom?” Zayn pushes a third finger inside him, slow and steady.

Harry tenses with pleasure and sighs before saying, “Basically, yeah.”

“You always liked to switch.”

“So did you.” Harry glances back over his shoulder and Zayn finds himself smiling back at him. How strange to know all these things about someone he never sees or speaks to, how fucked up to have that intimacy even now. How messed up to have been walking around for all this time knowing that Harry Styles likes to have his hair pulled and his balls sucked and that he likes to be shoved up against things but not quite as much as he likes to do the shoving; that once after Zayn stole Veronica’s knickers on set and wore them back to their hotel under his jeans Harry got on his knees and pressed his face against the silky material over Zayn’s cock, and barely even had time to wank himself off before he came. And intimacy deeper than that, too: that Harry is afraid of sleeping alone in the dark, that he is quietly convinced that his mother loves his sister more than she loves him, that sometimes he likes things that he is ashamed of liking. Zayn understands that; he has always understood. He’s often afraid and alone and ashamed too. 

He touches Harry’s back again, with more tenderness now, and moves his fingers inside him. Harry’s muscles flex and he exhales as though a weight has been taken off his shoulders. “Have you got stuff?” Zayn asks him, and Harry nods to his bedside table. Zayn moves away from him and rummages through it, finds a half-full bottle of lube and some scattered condoms. Right at the back there are a few magnums, which makes him feel weirdly jealous because he doesn’t use them and he knows that Harry doesn’t use them, so apparently Harry’s spent some time in the last however long getting fucked by someone with a colossal dick. He had that boyfriend who only bottomed so it must have been before then, which means it was probably a while ago but still—

“Zayn?” Harry sounds slightly worried.

“Yeah.” He positions himself behind Harry again and slicks his fingers up, pushing them inside him again. “Good?”

“Really fucking good.” Harry never swore that much, so hearing him curse goes right to Zayn’s cock. “Like, really great,” Harry says. “I sometimes missed this, you know.”

He’s still facing the headboard. Zayn wraps his free hand around Harry’s hip to line him up perfectly. “Did you?” He missed it too. He didn’t think it would be one of the things that he left behind with so much else.

“Of course,” Harry says to his pillows. “A lot.”

Zayn opens the condom. He feels elated and turned on and stupidly sad at the same time. The vulnerability of the back of Harry’s neck is making him want to be more gentle than he otherwise would. Back in the day they used to fuck any way they wanted – bent over the side of a sofa, slippery and almost falling over in a shower, hard and fast in a way that left them exultantly out of breath. He remembers that there were times that they actually high-fived because of just how fucking incredibly they’d just had sex. And then there had been softer times: sleepily first thing in the morning when he woke up to Harry pressing lazy kisses to his chest, his messy hair everywhere and tickling his skin; when Perrie had been away so Harry had stayed over – they’d slept in the spare room because it would have felt too weird to fuck in the bed he shared with his fiancée. The first time they’d done it, Zayn had fucked into him hard and fast and they’d both come embarrassingly quickly, and then they’d both fallen exhaustedly into bed. And then a few minutes later Harry had said, “You still awake?” and of course Zayn had been: it had been pitch black and Harry had found his mouth with his own, they’d kissed clumsily and slowly in the dark, Harry’s fingertips on the side of his jaw initially half-shaking; and then his hand had moved, his touch had been feather-light on his stomach, on the inside of his thighs, his wrists – places that he’d realised didn’t usually get touched. And then Harry had taken his time with his fingers, slick and gentle and still confident at the same time. Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness finally and Zayn had looked up at Harry as he pressed inside him slowly, so slowly: he had felt a depth of feeling that had left him half-despairing, because he didn’t know if he would ever feel so intensely again, he didn’t know if this would leave him broken. Harry had fucked him before, of course, but the feeling of giving himself over completely to someone else had never happened before. Afterwards Harry had rested his face on Zayn’s chest and there had been wetness there, sweat or tears, Zayn never asked; he’d just stroked his shaking fingers through Harry’s soft hair and tried to catch his breath.

“Harry.” He looks at him in front of him again, and his voice cracks: “Don’t I get to see your face, then?”

“What? You… yeah.” Harry shifts, his cheeks flushed high pink, and lies back. Zayn takes one of his pillows and helps him arrange it underneath him, because they aren’t fucking eighteen years old any more and if his back hurts more often these days then Harry’s probably does as well. Harry lies there, legs open, one hand behind his head and the other across his chest, his eyes on Zayn. “God, you’re fucking gorgeous.”

“Piss off,” Zayn says, pleased anyway, finally rolling the condom onto himself.

“I will not. You are. More now than when we were younger.” Harry half sits up, stomach muscles tensing, and pulls Zayn into a kiss, his lips puffy and sweet. When he lies back again Zayn goes with him, still kissing him, one of Harry’s heels digging into his back. “Fuck me,” Harry whispers against his mouth, and Zayn glances down to make sure he’s lined up, and pushes into him slowly, slowly, slowly. Harry presses their foreheads together and Zayn feels the prickly brush of his eyelashes as he blinks, and his breath hot on Zayn’s mouth. 

“Yeah?” he asks, biting Harry’s bottom lip gently, and Harry shudders out, “Yeah.” 

He feels so good. He feels so incurably incredible, everything about him: his foot digging into Zayn’s back like he’s trying to pull him in closer, his hands on Zayn’s shoulders, the stretch of his other leg almost balletic, his calf muscle defined and beautiful against Zayn’s thigh. His flushed skin and his hazy eyes, his mouth as he finds Zayn’s, his hissed intake of breath as Zayn begins to move. He’s vocal: Zayn had forgotten that he was vocal. How is that something he forgot? How many other things have slid away over the last ten years? How many of those things will he never get back? “Yes, yeah, God,” Harry’s murmuring, and Zayn presses kisses to the side of his face, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, bites him lightly, just enough to make him gasp.

When they were younger, Harry could come easily just from getting fucked – Zayn never had to touch him, although he liked to do it anyway. He reaches down now and wraps a hand around Harry’s cock, which makes him jerk upwards slightly and dig his fingers into Zayn’s back. “Fuck, yes,” he says, louder now, and Zayn fucks into him harder. Pleasure is flooding through him, intense and heady; he feels as though his whole body’s lighting up from it, like every time Harry touches his skin it gives off sparks. They’re still so fucking good at this. It’s so easy to find a good rhythm, it’s so easy to know what Harry wants, to rediscover him all over again, to kiss the line of his jaw and stroke his hair back from his sweaty forehead. The bed jerks away from the wall and Zayn pauses, Harry’s eyes open wide; they look at each other and they laugh and find each other’s mouths. “If you break my fucking bed,” Harry says against his lips, and Zayn says, “I promise I won’t,” and kisses him, and kisses him again.

Harry comes first; Zayn recognises it before it happens, the way his head tilts to the side and his nose wrinkles and his jaw drops, letting out a noise that’s half _yeah_ and half _fuck_ every time Zayn fucks into him. Harry holds onto him, his arm curled around Zayn’s neck, the sides of their faces pressed together and their bodies so close, as he comes hot and hard against Zayn’s stomach and over his hand. Zayn stills and lets Harry hold him, although it’s hard when he’s so close himself. He can feel himself almost vibrating, his free arm starting to shake as he holds himself up and poised over Harry. Harry moves then, kisses the corner of his lips and then his mouth before murmuring “Go,” and so Zayn does. One of Harry’s arms stretches up and he wraps his fingers around one of the slats on his headboard, holding himself in place, his head tilted back, his throat creamy pale and his mouth half-open. He’s sex personified, he’s decadent, he’s dark curls and pale skin and flushed cheeks and mouth, he looks like a poet at the turn of the twentieth century, he looks like opium dens and tragic heroes and bad decisions, he’s beauty and pain in a way that Zayn has always loved and will always hate himself for loving; and it’s made worse with the knowledge that when it’s over Harry will be gentle and thoughtful and yet detached. He squeezes his eyes shut and pounds into him and Harry says _yes, yes, yes, yes,_ and finally Zayn’s almost there and about to come. He pulls out, pulls the condom off and throws it fuck knows where, and comes onto Harry’s stomach and chest. 

The room spins. The world spins. Le petit mort – he’s heard that before, and he feels as though right now he’s treading some sort of borderline between life and whatever comes next. When he opens his eyes again Harry’s staring up at him, eyes big and fascinated, his skin streaked with pale translucent come. “That’s new,” he says, his voice half a croak.

“Surprise,” Zayn says, and tries to smile. 

“I liked it.” Harry holds his arms out and they manoeuvre themselves carefully, kicking the pillow away from underneath him. Zayn flops down onto his back and feels sweat soaking into the sheets from his skin. Harry turns onto his side and reaches for him. He pushes hair back off Zayn’s forehead and kisses his cheek and pulls up the damp sheets over the two of them. Part of Zayn wants to cry and he doesn’t know why. The reunion. The concert. The sex. Everything all together. Today has been way, way too much for him. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and takes a breath. He wants to go home and he doesn’t know where exactly that is. 

“You okay?” Harry says.

“Yeah. Tired,” Zayn tells him, his throat tight. 

“Me too. What did you think about the show?”

Zayn puts his hands down and opens his eyes, meeting Harry’s. “I don’t know. It went well, I suppose.”

“Louis and Liam were talking about a more long term reunion.” Harry’s looking at him carefully. “Like the Backstreet Boys did, or Take That, d’you remember?”

Zayn snorts. Backstreet Boys, looking more ancient by the day, Take That decimated to three members. What did Howard even do? What does he do now, the catering? “I remember.” 

“I think I’d rather go out on a high,” Harry says.

“Yeah.” Zayn doesn’t know what he wants, but he’s certain that he doesn’t want to be part of the One Direction juggernaut again. He doesn’t want a sixty-date tour, he doesn’t want to have the contents of every day in the next five years planned out for him. He doesn’t want to sing music that he doesn’t love. Tonight was great and he’s proud but the thought of a long term reunion makes him feel sick. “I can’t do it. I mean, I don’t know if anyone would want me to be part of it anyway—”

“I would,” Harry says. “We all would.”

“Liar,” Zayn says. “I cause problems. I’m unprofessional. I know you thought I was unprofessional.”

The corner of Harry’s lips twitches, which is as close to an admittance as Zayn’s ever likely to get. “That’s in the past now.”

“Yeah, well.” Zayn lets out a breath, trying to force leftover exasperation out too. “This is exceptionally bad pillow talk.”

“I just thought, while I’ve got you here, I should ask.” There are delicate circles underneath Harry’s eyes, as though they’ve been painted there with watercolours. They’re almost beautiful, the pale lavender and blue, but Zayn thinks he probably needs to sleep more. “I don’t want to, you see. I’ve got other stuff I want to do…”

“You said that last time,” Zayn points out, “years ago, and you signed up for another tour anyway.” 

His voice is harsher than he intended and Harry winces a little. “I know. But it made sense financially, and I thought it was a good idea to meet the other lads in the middle, you know? And I had songs that we could use on another album…”

“You lot never used my songs,” Zayn says flatly.

“Your songs were more r’n’b than we’d decided the band would be,” Harry says defensively.

“Still. It was our band. We could have made new decisions.” It’s an argument that Zayn never thought he’d have again, and yet here he is, feeling familiar prickles of irritation about it. His precious songs that he spent time on, that he was proud of – he wishes that he could be more mature about it but that’s the problem with never having anything resembling closure. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. There seems to be sincerity there; Zayn looks into his eyes and tells himself to believe him, and it almost works. “Look, I’m sort of…” He gestures at his front and makes a face. “I think I might have a shower. Do you want to come with me?”

Zayn does. They peel themselves out of Harry’s bed and make their way into his en suite. He turns the shower on and they wait for it to heat up. Steam makes its way into the bathroom and fogs the mirror up, as Harry stands beside him naked and unapologetic, yawning a little and pushing his sweaty hair back off his face. There are marks on him, on his hips and arse and his neck, that Zayn must have left on him. He reaches out and presses his fingers into the prints on Harry’s hip. Harry stops mid-yawn to smile lopsidedly at him, raising a knowing eyebrow. 

They step together into the shower. Every part of Zayn’s body feels weary now, the stage adrenaline gone and his muscles aching from the long flight, from the sex, from spending the majority of his life feeling tense and being irritable about it. Harry lets out a contented sigh as he tilts his head to slick his hair back and Zayn turns away so that they can both wash themselves a bit more privately. Sure they’ve known each other for a long time, sure they’ve had a lot of sex, but he’s going to go ahead and allow Harry a little space to wash lube off his arse. After a moment Harry says, “Hey,” and Zayn turns to him again. The air is citrus scented now from Harry’s shower gel. He finds himself leaning against Harry’s chest, arms looped around his neck, the side of his face against his shoulder, his nose against the side of his neck. Harry wraps his arms around his waist and holds him there tight, the water still pounding down around them.

*

It rains that night. Zayn knows it because he wakes before the sun rises and lies there next to Harry, who’s asleep and snuffling like a piglet into his pillow. Above them, rain is hammering down onto the roof, and it makes the space feel more intimate and closed in, as though they’re being held together in a warm, careful hand. Zayn peels himself out of bed and moves over to the window, drawing back the curtain so he can look out onto the street. The road is slick shiny black, and over the road behind the wall the trees are wet skeleton shadows, naked of their leaves, standing out against the dark clouded sky like claws. The streetlamp opposite Harry’s house is dim, as though its batteries are running low, spilling a scattered pool of milky light onto the pavement. A car winds its way down the road, its headlights on bright, slowing down to get through the narrow gap just ahead of Harry’s house. The rain still falls, certain and pattering.

Zayn glances over his shoulder. Harry’s still asleep. He cracks the window open and breathes in the cool clean air and the scent of petrichor. It smells different from rain in New York, but maybe that’s because his apartment there is higher off the ground so that all he sees when he looks out is the tops of buildings and the sky. For a moment he misses his new city so much and its newness and anonymity that it’s a physical ache. 

He closes the window again, quiet so that Harry doesn’t wake up, but the regular sound of his breathing has stopped and when he turns back to the bed Harry’s half sitting up, resting on an elbow, squinting as his hair falls down over one eye. “Don’t tell me,” he says, his voice thick with sleep, “don’t tell me that you’re about to walk out on me without saying goodbye again?”

“I just wanted to see the rain,” Zayn says, and Harry clears his throat and nods before flopping back onto his pillows. He can’t deny it, it’s true: he never said goodbye before he left the band. He never said goodbye after he left, either. Before that night it had been a while since the two of them had been together. Things had tailed off for various reasons: first of all Harry had agreed to another album and another tour even though he’d promised that he wouldn’t, and secondly, things had started to get a little more serious with Perrie. They’d been engaged for a year or so and finally, towards the end of 2014, they’d started to look at dates and venues. In hindsight he isn’t sure why he let it get so far: maybe he just wanted some kind of home to come back to, some sort of security. Maybe he was just too tired to stop it. Maybe part of him even wanted it. He loved her, after all. He’d been talking to Liam about it offhand, about how Perrie thought that maybe getting married by the coast would be nice but then again flying everyone out to the Caribbean would be fun too, and apparently Harry had overheard. He’d caught him by the wrist in a corridor in between interviews for whatever book they brought out around then and he’d said: “So you’re doing it? You’re actually doing it?”

Zayn knew what he meant but he frowned at him anyway as he twitched away and said, “Doing what?”

“Marrying her. You’re actually marrying her.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Zayn had known exactly why he wouldn’t: the thing with Harry, the things with other girls, the occasional things with other guys. Lying to Perrie, the times she realised he was doing it and the times she didn’t which arguably were worse. Even at the time he’d thought, his mind blown by it: _How aren’t you realising? Don’t you know where I was last night? Haven’t you thought about it? Don’t you care?_ and of course there had been no answers. The arguments they’d had about their future, where they’d live and when they’d have kids, even little things like where they’d go on holiday: they both liked sun and sand but she’d liked the idea of party islands like Ibiza and Mykonos and he’d wanted empty beaches, no one else in sight, silence for days on end. He’d liked her so much and loved her as well, but maybe not enough. From the first time he’d found himself cheating on her, the failure of their relationship had been inevitable. He couldn’t be eighty and sitting with a wife he’d been with for sixty years, knowing that he’d accepted blowjobs from fans before kicking them out of his hotel room and texting Perrie good night. The foundations for their life together would be too rocky.

And Harry knew that – of course Harry knew that. His eyes had been dark and stormy for once and his mouth a thin pained line, and Zayn had thought, almost spellbound, _Are you hurt? I didn’t know I had the ability to make you unhappy. I didn’t know that you cared that much._ He’d wanted to press the wound and to see how much he could make Harry hurt, to find out how much power he had over him, and so he’d looked up into Harry’s eyes and said, calmly, “I love her.”

After that, things had been a lot quieter between them.

And then there was that night in Hong Kong. He’d known that he was going to go. It had all been too much: he’d fucked up that week with some girl, and the press about it had been exhausting, the relentless tweets from fans, the calls from their management and publicists. Perrie wasn’t answering his calls, which sent anxiety racketing through his whole body, and then there was the tightness of disappointment in his mum’s voice yet again when he called home. Jawaad was next to him, providing pretty much no answers and managing only to distract him vaguely with video games. The other boys had promised that it would be the last tour. That there would be a break afterwards. He had started it with optimism and he’d thought that perhaps he’d be able to get through it. The despair had started to sink in earlier than it had before on previous tours: he’d had to leave a concert early, sucking in deep panicked breaths backstage that seemed completely lacking in oxygen, his dry lips cracking until they bled. Louis had been manic and silent by turns since he broke up with Eleanor, and that had been disconcerting too, flying with him to LA for a couple of nights and watching him drink determinedly all evening, and then sitting with him in the back of a car while he ranted red-eyed about how things would be better without her, easier, how he would be happier now, how Zayn should be single too, how being alone was the way to be, how they should be lone wolves together—“That doesn’t work, lone wolves together,” Zayn had said gently, and Louis had let out a laugh that was jagged and almost tearful. Things felt strange and misshapen. He’d looked out at crowds and felt as though he was not fully there. He was disengaged with their songs in a way that he hadn’t felt before. He looked in the mirror and saw nothing that he recognised in his reflection.

So yeah: he’d known that he was going. The idea gained certainty and clarity all evening as he sang and thought and smiled too, and laughed sometimes – which is bizarre, he even managed to laugh and to be happy amidst everything else that was going on. He’d thought: _I’m going back to the hotel. I’m going to pack. And then I’m going to go home._ And he’d felt more relief than he’d known for the last five years.

Even now he remembers how it felt to go offstage after _Best Song Ever_. Harry had been right behind him as the roar of the crowds was sealed away behind a door and they’d emerged into the backstage area, Harry shining with sweat and with a smile stretching all the way to the sun. Zayn had looked at him and thought, _One last time._

And so he went back to the hotel. He packed. And then, before he went home, he went on a detour.

Harry’s hotel room was a couple of doors down from him. He ordered a basket of chips, remembering to call them French fries so that he didn’t get a polite yet puzzled hotel employee turning up with several packets of Lays ready salted, which had happened more times than he cared to think about. He ate a couple before brushing his teeth and washing the grease off his hands, and then he picked up the basket and walked down to Harry’s room and knocked. Harry opened it quickly, looking quizzical and then oddly blank, eyes flickering from Zayn’s face to the chips and back up to his face again.

“I ordered room service and now I’m not hungry and I didn’t want them to go to waste,” Zayn explained. He knew Harry hated waste so it was a decent excuse.

“Oh. Thanks. Come in?” It came out like a question but he went past Harry into the hotel room anyway. He looked around and tried to memorise everything. _This is the last time._ He’d told his assistant to book him a flight already. He had to leave for the airport at quarter to three. Harry’s watch and book were on his bedside table, and pictures of his parents and Gemma were blu-tacked up on the wall over the mirror. His suitcase lay sprawled on the floor, his clothes crawling out of it like he’d recently been rummaging in there, and the air smelled like him, like his cologne and his skin, the scent of his scalp when Zayn wrapped his arms around him in bed and pressed his nose into his hair. There was a wet towel balled up on the floor and when he looked at Harry his shirt was clinging to his body, as though he’d just pulled it on over wet skin to answer the door. His hair hung in damp tendrils around his slightly concerned face. One arm was bent across his chest, almost like he was protecting himself, when he said, “Is everything all right? I saw that stuff about… about…”

“That girl. Yeah, everything’s all right,” Zayn said, and laughed a bit like he was saying ‘Typical me! A typical Zayn problem!’ which seemed to reassure Harry enough that he relaxed, dropping that protective arm and coming over to peer at the chips. “There’s ketchup too if you want,” Zayn told him.

“I’m actually not hungry either.”

“Yeah, me neither. It was kind of a pretext,” Zayn admitted.

“I guessed.” There was humour in the line of Harry’s mouth and he picked up the basket, taking it outside to put it on the balcony, presumably so his room didn’t start to stink like a fish and chip shop. He stayed outside for a moment longer than he needed to and so Zayn joined him out there. The air was thick and humid even at night and the city was still completely lit up. “Zayn, what the fuck are we going to do about all of this,” Harry said, almost under his breath, still looking out at the night. 

“About what?” Zayn asked, pretending not to know.

Harry shot him a look before visibly wilting. “It doesn’t matter.”

Something discordant was starting to ring inside Zayn’s head. “If you don’t want me to be here, I can go.”

“That’s the problem.” Harry was smiling slightly, but he didn’t look happy – his lips were a little twisted and his brows were furrowed. “I always want you to be here.”

“So.” Zayn took a deep breath before exhaling the guilt. “Let’s go back inside.”

“Yeah.” Harry reached out for him and hooked an arm around his neck, dragging him in close. Kissing outside was a risk – Zayn knew it, and he assumed Harry knew it too, but in that moment it was worth it. He didn’t care what happened to him anymore. He was going. This would be over for a while and then once the dust had settled, maybe they’d meet in London the next time there was a break in the tour. Maybe things with Perrie would be sorted out by then, or even ended. Maybe he’d have figured everything out. Harry’s lips were warm and certain on his, and then they parted and Harry reached for his hand before pulling him back inside.

In the end he’d fucked Zayn: Zayn had asked him to, straddling him on the bed, hands on Harry’s chest. Harry had wanted to take his time but Zayn had wanted it to be something that he remembered physically hours later. He wanted to be in London sore and aching. He wanted to hurt, and as it turned out, he did, thinking of Harry on the plane as he shifted in his seat. Afterwards Harry had drawn him in close and they had kissed for longer than they had before, slow and lingering. He’d told himself, _Remember this_ , as Harry’s hand stroked through his hair, as Harry looked into his eyes, as the back of Harry’s knuckles touched his cheekbone. There are still things he retains from that night: the way that Harry had told him he loved the freckle on his pupil, the stupid knock knock joke that Harry told before laughing heartily at himself, and the silhouette of Harry’s body when he got up from the bed to look out of the window, the lines of him lean and curved at the same time, long and elegant and gorgeous. He retains the sense of guilt, too. The sense that he knows exactly when things went wrong. He didn’t let himself doze off at the same time that Harry did: he lay there awake in the almost-dark, their bodies tangled together, Harry’s breath regular and warm on his cheek. Over Harry’s shoulder he could see the digital clock. When it flipped to half past two, he detangled himself from Harry, slowly and carefully. He got up and fumbled for his clothes, pulling them back on as silently as he could. He considered waking him up. He considered saying goodbye. And in the end, of course, he didn’t.

And now, right now, it feels so similar to that night. Harry in bed, sleepy, frowning: Zayn himself by the window. “I wasn’t leaving,” he finds himself saying, more firmly now.

Harry smiles, his nose wrinkling. “I know. Come back to bed.”

“I wasn’t leaving.” Somehow Zayn obeys him, crosses the room and folds himself back between Harry’s sheets, finding that warm air between them. 

Harry slots his body against Zayn’s comfortably, an arm slung over his waist. “Next time you leave,” he murmurs, “promise you’ll tell me first.”

Zayn wants to tell him that he won’t leave again, but that seems like a lie. Instead he whispers, “I promise.”

“Good. Now get the fuck back to sleep.”

Obediently, Zayn does.

*

The next time he wakes up Harry’s stretching luxuriantly beside him. It’s clearly morning: watery sunlight is peering around the corner of the curtains, and outside the bedroom door there’s the sound of two cats meowing as loudly as they can. “I think they feel as though I’ve been neglecting them,” Harry yawns, and raises his voice: “I’m coming! Maisie! Evie! Hang on a second!”

He tumbles out of bed and puts on a dressing gown with a fluffy collar, which Zayn finds oddly endearing, and says, “Come down for breakfast. I’ll make something.”

“All right then.” Zayn smiles at him as he vanishes out into the hallway, talking to the cats about how good they are and how patient they’ve been and how they shouldn’t get under his feet while he’s trying to go downstairs because he’ll fall and break his neck and then who’ll feed them, who’ll tickle them behind their ears then, Jesus Christ, Maisie, watch it—

Zayn waits for Harry’s voice and the meowing to retreat before he gets out of bed. Outside the rain has stopped, and the day is bright and clear, the sky a forget-me-not blue and the road still shining. He crosses to the bathroom and uses his finger and some of Harry’s toothpaste to brush his teeth. There are more bathrobes hanging up behind the door and Zayn considers putting one of them on but instead he goes into Harry’s walk-in wardrobe and hunts around in drawers to find clean pants and gym shorts and an old but clean Blondie t-shirt that’s wearing thin in the neckline and armpits, the cotton so soft it feels almost like silk. He turns his head and presses his face to his shoulder, hoping to find Harry’s scent in the shirt, but there’s nothing except soap powder and a slight mustiness.

Downstairs Harry makes toast and perfectly poached eggs and sprinkles granola and peach slices and raspberries onto bowls of plain yogurt before setting down mugs of strong tea. The cats have finished eating and prowl around their chairs. Evie wraps herself around Zayn’s legs, her tail coiling around his calf, and purrs when he reaches down to stroke her between the ears. It feels easier than he would have thought. The paper has been delivered, the Guardian, and Harry splits it in two so that they can silently read. Apparently he’s remembered that Zayn doesn’t really like to talk much in the mornings.

There are no reviews of their concert yet, thankfully. Zayn doesn’t know if the Guardian would even bother to cover it. He hasn’t checked his phone in hours and hours and he doesn’t particularly want to. It already feels like a world away. He knows that it felt as though it went well and that’s all that he really cares about. He also knows that the second he reads something negative about it, he’ll find himself in a shitty, horrible spiral of doubt that it’ll be hard to climb back out of.

Harry finishes his toast, crunching the last of the crust, and says, “When do you have to go back to New York?”

“I don’t, really,” Zayn says without thinking, spearing a piece of peach with his fork. Harry’s eyes widen and Zayn explains, “I mean, I need to go back, but right now I don’t have a set date. I planned to go back quickly, but – I don’t know. I don’t have any concrete plans. I told Niall I’d be around for a week or so, so that we can catch up. He’s still not really happy with me.”

Harry shrugs a shoulder noncommittally. “You have to let people have their feelings.”

That’s probably true. “Hopefully he gets over them soon,” Zayn says. “But I want to try to use the time here to – you know. Build some bridges.”

“That’s a good idea. You know, I think he thought of you as a bit like a big brother,” Harry says.

That’s nice. “I thought of him as a little brother,” Zayn agrees. 

“You know what his actual big brother’s like, right?” Harry asks.

“A pain in the arse,” Zayn says.

“Right.” Harry licks his thumb and picks up some toast crumbs from his plate. “I think that when there’s a pattern of being let down, it’s hard to force yourself to trust people.”

Zayn feels himself huff out a sigh. “I know, I know. And I don’t think it fucking matters that much in the end, you know? I’ve been fine without him for years. And friendships are allowed to change. We’re allowed to move on from each other. Sometimes that’s actually the healthiest option.”

“I don’t disagree,” Harry says, which is typical Styles in that it isn’t much of an answer. His hair’s tousled and it’s sticking up on one side: honestly it looks stupid and so Zayn reaches out to rearrange it carefully. A smile dances over Harry’s lips. “So you’ll be here for a while?” he asks, and Zayn nods. Harry takes a breath. “Well, then – maybe we can spend a bit of time together.”

“Maybe we can,” Zayn allows. The idea of it makes his chest feel like it’s going to burst. Eventually Harry wanders upstairs for a shower and so Zayn sits on the ground and plays with the cats, until they decide they’ve had enough of him and stalk off to go and lie in patches of sunlight on the floor. He retrieves his phone from his backpack in the hallway and ignores all the notifications on the screen so that he can call Megan.

When she answers she sounds hungover and as though she’s got a headache but she sounds excited anyway when she says, “I heard you went home with Harry Styles!”

“He’s just Harry,” Zayn says. “He’s not Harry _Styles_.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He releases a breath. “Look, do you want a week off?”

A pause. And then she says, “Really?”

“Yeah. You can have a holiday. Go somewhere in Europe. Have you ever been to Paris?”

Another pause. “Uh, no – I mean, except for working trips with you – but it’s still kind of…”

“I’ll pay for whatever you want,” he tells her. “Just have fun. Use my card for whatever you need, put it on expenses, fly over a mate if you want. I’m going to stay in London for a bit. Listen…” The shower has switched off upstairs. Harry’s going to be ready soon. “Ignore the press, yeah? And could you let everyone else on the team know that I’m not around and I’m not going to respond to anything? I just want to chill.”

“Okay. Sure. Cool.” She sounds a little overwhelmed. “Have a blast, Zayn, okay?”

“Will do. You too, Megs.” Inside his stomach, he feels a thrumming combination of fear and excitement as he hangs up. He doesn’t really know what he’s just decided to do, but he does know that it’s a little scary and, potentially, wonderful.

*

He and Harry walk down to Hampstead Heath. He doesn’t have a waterproof jacket with him so he borrows an old anorak of Harry’s that smells like mud and fresh air. In the pockets he finds a soft Alexander McQueen scarf that he tucks around his neck, thirty-two pence in loose change, and a battered map of Reykjavik. “I went there with, um, with, um,” Harry says, uncharacteristically lost for words.

“The guy from the party last night? Or the magnum condom guy?” Zayn asks, intrigued despite himself.

Harry goes red, which is hilarious. “The guy from the party,” he says, and shoves Zayn lightly with his shoulder so he almost trips into the undergrowth at the side of the road. Everything feels beautiful and sun-dappled: it’s quiet because it’s a weekday, and there aren’t many cars going by so it feels as though they’re lost together in this autumn world. Because of the rain last night, the grass by the side of the road is a bright, glistening green, and the fallen leaves underfoot are glorious shades of yellow and crimson and orange. On the heath, nobody seems to notice that they’re there. There’s a young woman walking about six dogs who does a bit of a double take before moving on, but that seems about it. Harry’s wearing tight jeans like he used to years and years ago, and it’s hard not to notice how good they look, even though they’re tucked into wellies which almost but not quite ruins the effect. 

They talk, which is new: even in the band, they didn’t talk all that much. Harry tells him all about a novel he’s been reading and Zayn tells him about an up and coming spoken word poet who he saw last week in Brooklyn. He asks about Gemma, who is apparently pregnant with her first baby—“But don’t tell anyone,” Harry warns him, “because it’s early days, and she’ll kill me if it gets out.”

Zayn is an uncle, three times over. “It’s the best,” he tells Harry. “I don’t see them as much as I’d like to, but they’re really cute. And my mum loves being a grandma.” 

“I bet she’s brilliant at it,” Harry says. “You know, that was – er, that was sort of the reason that me and Alex – the guy at the party – that was the reason we broke up.”

“Because you loved being a grandma and he thought it was weird?” Zayn asks, because he will never tire of giving Harry shit.

Harry laughs and rolls his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Malik. No, I was just a bit more ready to settle down than him. He wanted to focus on his career for a while, which is absolutely fair enough, he was a couple of years younger anyway. It’s sort of quite hard to find someone who’s at the same stage of life as you are.”

Zayn nods slowly. “I get that. I mean, the next time I go out with someone, I want it to be, like – I want it to be for real this time. Not that it wasn’t for real before, but I don’t want drama, I don’t want any of that shit, I just want—Hiya, yeah, hi.” An older couple, arm in arm, walk past them, and beam their hellos, as though they’re wandering around in a village in the middle of fucking nowhere and not in the centre of one of the biggest cities in the world. “Um, anyway, yeah. I want to have kids not too far away in the future, and I sort of want my next relationship to be leading up to that.”

“Me too.” Harry’s staring ahead of them, and he’s silent for a moment. When Zayn looks sideways at him, he’s biting his bottom lip. “I mean, we’ll both find that. We’ll be happy.”

“Of course,” Zayn says, although sometimes he isn’t so sure. He sometimes doesn’t think he’s the kind of person who’s good at finding happiness or letting himself luxuriate in it when he finally gets there.

“I think,” Harry says, “that when you’ve been in love, really in love, and you know what that love feels like, it’s hard to meet someone else. I’ve spent a long time thinking, _Wow. No one else will ever feel as good again_.”

Harry’s been in that sort of love? Zayn’s throat is suddenly tight. He squints as he looks out across the heath: they’re almost at the top now, where they can survey pretty much the whole of London. He wonders hungrily what sort of person Harry was in love with, whether it was a man or a woman, whether they were older or younger, whether they’re someone that Zayn knows or not. He bets they were the sort of person who makes their own nut milk. He bets they smiled easily, and that they were kind. “Yeah.” He clears his throat. “I guess so.” 

It’s quiet as they walk to Kenwood. It’s an elegant house with pillars and lots of windows that wouldn’t look out of place in the sort of soppy BBC costume drama that Zayn’s mum likes to watch. There’s a café, where they eat scones loaded with jam and clotted cream and drink tea that’s too milky, and an art gallery, which if Zayn is honest isn’t his style: there are too many old white people with stuck up expressions in the paintings, too many dogs with fucked up faces, but he likes the careful way that Harry reads all the little signs next to the artwork. He likes the quietness of it, their footsteps on the wooden floors, the smell of polish and dust, the high ceilings and wide windows letting in all the light. When they go outside again they crunch over a courtyard made of tiny pebbles and down an arch with vines knotted over it. It smells of wet greenness and he thinks it would probably be beautiful in spring or summer. Still, it’s shadowy and private, and Harry glances each way before leaning in to kiss him. Zayn lets him, kisses him back even, feeling slightly overwhelmed. This is the sort of thing they never did before. Harry pulls back after a moment and reaches to find Zayn’s hand, squeezing it with cold fingers before releasing it and walking onwards.

They wind their way down to Hampstead Village, which is full of rich people. Zayn isn’t sure when he’ll start to mentally include himself in their ranks, but apparently that day is not today. Every single shop seems to be either a boutique or a fancy place to have brunch, but on the bright side, almost everyone walking along has a dog. Harry buys himself some faux suede maroon gloves, which are ridiculous but will probably look excellent on him, and Zayn buys a black mug that the Hulk appears on when you put boiling water in it. It’s £4.99 from a little card shop and he already knows that it’s going to bring him unfathomable amounts of entertainment and joy. “You should leave that at my house,” Harry says. “You can use it every time you visit me.”

“Don’t be disgusting,” Zayn says, and is pleased despite himself. From an art shop he buys a big pad of thick creamy paper and a box of paints and some brushes, and Harry buys a wooden figure with movable limbs. “Those are so you can figure out shape and form when you’re drawing people,” Zayn says as they walk out of the shop, but unfortunately his expertise is useless because Harry says, trying to bend the figure in half, “I’m trying to see if he can suck his own dick.”

The figure cannot. Harry looks mildly disappointed and puts it back in its bag as Zayn hides a smile behind his hand. They cram themselves into a small pub that smells strongly of cooked breakfasts. The waiter either doesn’t recognise them or couldn’t give less of a fuck who they are: he looks them up and down and sighs dramatically and says, “Fine, yeah, sure, I guess we have a table.” They sit knee to knee in the smallest booth in the world with their bags tucked under the table: it’s rare that Zayn feels ten times too gigantic for the space that he’s in, but there’s only space to fit approximately two thirds of his not particularly sizeable arse onto the bench. Harry sits close to him, his smile almost a laugh: they order club sandwiches and yet more tea, and when their food arrives they tuck into it immediately. Harry reaches over to touch the corner of Zayn’s mouth and explains, “You had some mayo on your beard,” and Zayn nods his thanks. The windows are steamy and it’s so noisy in there that it feels like one of the most private places he’s ever been, like there’s no possibility at all that anyone could overhear what they’re saying. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s going to start spouting off about private things that he doesn’t really want to think about.

On the walk back to Harry’s house, two shit things happen. First of all, there’s a photographer. Just one, but that’s well and truly enough. Harry’s face does something strange and frozen: he pulls up the hood of his jacket so it’s half covering his face, and Zayn does the same. His club sandwich and all the cups of tea and the scone and clotted cream and jam are simultaneously swirling and lumpen in his stomach as they hurry up the hill towards Harry’s house, and he feels a bit sick. The second thing is that it starts to rain. Harry says “Fuck!” and looks up at the clouds, which have drawn across the pale blue sky to create a dark grey blanket that’s ominous and ugly. 

Thankfully the photographer leaves them alone once he’s got his shots. It’s still shit though: people will know they spent time together, everyone who knows they used to hook up will assume correctly that they did it again, people will ask them about it relentlessly. Sure, there were shots of them outside the club last night, but there’s leaving a club after playing a show together and then there’s having a pleasantly mundane shopping trip to Hampstead Village. Zayn doesn’t want to think about it too hard and he certainly doesn’t want anyone else to force him to do so.

“Come on, let’s get back before the sky completely caves in,” Harry says, turning his face upwards to squint at the darkness overhead. His hood falls back off his head and Zayn watches as a fat droplet of rain lands directly on his cheek. His eyes widen and his lips part and Zayn can’t take his eyes off his face. It feels terrible and brilliant at the same time. And then the clouds break and the rain comes as though someone’s upended a bucket of water over them. Zayn gasps in a breath and Harry says, “Run for it!”

And so they do. They run together up the hill, Harry sliding around the wet pavement in his wellies, their carrier bags banging against their legs. Zayn’s hood falls down and he can feel the rain soaking into his hair and trickling down the back of his neck and his spine. It feels strangely glorious and he finds himself laughing as he runs up the hill, miraculously not out of breath. He feels anonymous again. Harry glances over his shoulder at him, his smile so bright that it’s blinding. He stops for a second until Zayn is level with him and then he reaches out to grab his spare hand. And so they run together instead, feet slapping against the ground, hot and cold at the same time. Zayn breathes in the autumn rain and the delicious clean air. If it would ever be possible for a human being to fly, he thinks he’d do it right now: his feet would take off, his toes would skim the surface of the ground for just a second, and then he’d take flight. 

Harry fumbles with his keys outside the door and twists and laughs as Zayn sneaks cold hands under his jacket and beneath his jumper to the warm skin there. “Zayn! Fuck off!”

“Absolutely not,” he says, although he lets go anyway as Harry finally manages to get the door open. He flips the lights on and immediately the hallway is rosy and glowing. Harry turns to him with a smile that’s almost luminous: he looks handsome, terribly so, his curls shiny and defined by the rain and his cheeks flushed from the cold and the running. It’s awful and brilliant at the same time and so Zayn reaches for him to kiss him. Of course Harry kisses him back, lifting a hand to run it through Zayn’s wet hair, cold fingers on Zayn’s face, his mouth cold too, all of his exposed skin cold and then there’s the warmth of him underneath his coat as Zayn pushes it off his shoulders. There’s his wrists and his neck and his stomach and his back. He pushes Zayn back and Zayn lets him, moves with him, savours the way his shoulder blades hit the wall. Harry pushes a leg between his so they’re tangled together, unzips his jeans, sticks a hand in there – and his fingers still aren’t warm but now his mouth is and Zayn finds himself holding onto him, arms around his shoulders, Harry’s kiss hard and soft at the same time. Zayn feels himself gasp as Harry finds his cock. “My hands are numb,” Harry mumbles into the kiss as a sort of apology for it taking three and a half seconds longer than it usually would.

Zayn doesn’t care: of course he doesn’t care. He opens his eyes to look into Harry’s, so close that they’re blurred, his pupils dark and blown, his lashes dark and spiky. “God,” he finds himself saying, “God. Yes. Harry.”

*

It’s a quiet evening. They shower, separately this time, and Zayn borrows an old, comfortable pair of green tartan pyjama bottoms that were originally from Marks and Spencers. Harry roots around for a jumper for him and throws him a Gucci hoodie still wrapped in tissue paper. Sometimes the juxtaposition of what happens in their lives is absolutely insane. They cook together, pasta in a lemony chicken sauce, and eat in front of the TV, cross-legged on Harry’s sofa. Harry pours cold glasses of white wine and doesn’t bother with coasters. A news report comes on about the show they played last night and Harry makes a disapproving noise around a mouthful of pasta and flips the channel onto Netflix. When they’re done, Harry unearths a raspberry cheesecake that’s almost out of date in the fridge and they cut slabs of it. Zayn picks off the raspberries and eats them one by one, savouring their sourness and their tang, before digging his fork into the pink-stained cake itself.

Harry’s watching him approvingly. “You eat more than you used to.”

“I know,” Zayn says, muffled around the cheesecake. “I sort of—” He isn’t sure how to phrase it, so he shrugs and leaves it.

“Had a bit of a problem for a while,” Harry says, almost like a question.

Zayn shrugs a shoulder again. “Sort of.”

“But it’s better now?”

“In as much as you ever get better from something like that,” Zayn says. His therapist told him that it’s absolutely brilliant that he feels better now but that if he ever finds himself in stressful situations then he needs to focus on himself and make himself his number one priority so that he doesn’t fall back into old habits. She was definitely right. The thing about food is that you control it yourself for a while to make yourself feel more settled about other things in your life, and then you realise that it’s controlling you and it’s just become yet another stupid thing to stress about. 

“It sounds like the sort of thing that you always have to be careful about,” Harry says. On the TV, Jake Peralta is about to propose to Amy Santiago on Halloween. Zayn has seen this episode about ten times but he could watch it over and over again anyway. He can feel Harry’s eyes on him, and then Harry reaches out and takes the remote control and pauses the show. “Zayn? Look at me.”

Zayn does, although if he’s honest he isn’t really in the mood for a thoughtful little chat. Harry’s eyes are wide and earnest and he’s mostly mushed up his cheesecake instead of eating it, which is a stupid waste. “You don’t need to say anything,” Zayn says, “about how you didn’t realise and how you’re sorry and—”

“But that’s the thing,” Harry says. “I _did_ realise.”

Zayn says: “Oh.” He feels weirdly empty.

“I just sort of thought, oh, he’ll be all right soon, I just didn’t think it was as big a deal as it actually was,” Harry says quickly. “I just thought we were all a bit stressed and tired and that it was your way of – of – I don’t know. I think…” He looks ashamed, and Zayn doesn’t know whether that makes this whole conversation better or worse. “I just sort of stuck my head in the sand about it,” he says. “The anxiety and the eating. I thought it was a bit more mind over matter than it actually was. I thought it was more of a choice.”

Zayn blinks at him. “It wasn’t a choice.”

“I know that now,” Harry says. “I’m sorry. I don’t – you know, I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

“It’s all right,” Zayn says. He looks down at his plate and then at the paused TV and then finally back at Harry’s worried face. He isn’t sure whether he should be cross, but it all happened so long ago now that he can’t be. And he knows that he was difficult to be around sometimes, and that it took him a very long time to seek any real help instead of trying to work it out for himself, although he also knows that that was probably a symptom of whatever the fuck was going on in his head. “I don’t think there’s anything really to forgive. It was all weird. I didn’t understand how I felt, so I can’t expect you to have miraculously got it.”

Harry lets out a breath. “All right. We’re good?”

“I sucked your dick last night,” Zayn says. “Obviously we’re good.” He cracks a smile.

Harry splutters out a laugh, and then looks a little more serious. “How are you these days?”

“Fine,” Zayn says immediately, the way he always does when people ask him that question. But there’s something in Harry’s eyes that makes him want to be open with him, and so he thinks for a moment. Harry gives him space to think and to speak, which is something that Zayn has always appreciated about him. “I’m mostly good. A lot better than I was back then. I’m on some medication, nothing heavy-duty or anything, just some stuff that helps to even things out a bit. Like, if something stressful happens then I’m just normal worried instead of…” He whistles out a breath and uses a hand to mimic a plane plunging to the ground. “And I have a therapist. She’s really good. I also stopped smoking weed, which is like… I don’t know. I miss it sometimes, but I had reached a place where it was hindering me rather than helping. So.” He shrugs and looks properly back at Harry. “Things are all right.”

The expression in Harry’s eyes makes him want to look away again immediately. There’s such tenderness there that it’s unbearable. He snakes out his fork and steals a mouthful of Harry’s cheesecake and says, “Ha ha,” and Harry makes a horrified noise, and things are back to almost normal again – whatever normal has become for them over the last day or so. Whatever normal could be for them, one day.

*

The next morning, Zayn begrudgingly switches his phone on again. Today he woke up after Harry, and downstairs he can hear the radio and Harry occasionally talking to the cats. As his phone comes to life, he hears Harry bellow “Get _down_ off the work surfaces, Evie, we’ve _talked_ about this _so many times_!” and Zayn has to smile. He feels good: a little sore because of the shapes that he somehow managed to bend himself into while Harry was fucking him last night, but his head feels miraculously clear and he’s much more willing than usual to get out of bed and start the day. 

But first comes the phone. Messages from his mum, who thinks that the show was incredible. A video from Doniya, showing her kids dancing around in front of the TV to _What Makes You Beautiful_. Liam, saying how good it was to see him again. Louis, thanking him for being there. Niall, suggesting a couple of dates for that drink they’re planning to have. A selfie of Megan late last night in front of the Eiffel Tower. His dad telling him that he must come up to Bradford while he’s in the UK. He immediately types back _I definitely will_ , and his dad sends back _Your mum will be happy LOL_ because he still, for some ungodly fucking reason, thinks that ‘LOL’ means ‘lots of love’. 

He puts on Harry’s pyjama bottoms and Gucci sweatshirt again before going downstairs. The second he goes into the kitchen Maisie comes up to him and presses herself against his legs and meows plaintively, so he picks her up and cradles her against his chest. “Morning, Maisie-baby. Morning, Maisie-pops,” he croons to her, and kisses her on her furry little forehead. “I miss the Dobster,” he tells Harry.

“That hairless thing?” Harry makes a face as he reaches over to turn the radio off.

“Don’t be so fucking rude.” Zayn tuts at him and Harry laughs before turning back to the stove. “I’m making sweetcorn fritters,” he says, which explains the incredible smell, and nods at another saucepan. “Buttered spinach in there. You can make the scrambled eggs.”

“All right.” There’s a carton of eggs on the surface and Zayn breaks four into a bowl before scooping out a disobedient piece of shell with a teaspoon. Every fucking time. He’s pretty good at scrambled eggs, even if he says so himself, and once they’re whisked he nudges in at the stove next to Harry to cook them. Harry flips the fritters and presses his hip against Zayn’s. There’s golden stubble glittering on his chin and his hair’s sticking up in a way that’s endearing and stupid. He hasn’t showered yet, which means that he smells particularly good, like skin and sleep and Harry. Zayn twists his head sideways so that he can bite Harry’s shoulder through his t-shirt and make a growling noise.

“What the hell is wrong with him,” Harry mutters to the fritters, and Zayn laughs. 

When the food is ready, Zayn dishes it up while Harry makes cups of tea. They sit next to each other and Harry reaches out to hook an ankle around Zayn’s. “What do you want to do today?” he asks. “I made a list of ideas on my phone.” He starts scrolling. “The zoo. The Tower of London. A trip down to the beach at Brighton. The Millennium Wheel—”

“You do know that I used to live here, right? I’m not your weird German exchange pen pal who needs to be entertained,” Zayn points out, although he actually kind of likes the idea of going to the zoo. They could look at the penguins. He’s a big fan of penguins.

Harry looks doggedly down at his phone and keeps scrolling. “The Victoria and Albert museum. The Natural History Museum. The National Portrait Gallery—”

“Have you googled a list of things for mums to do with their horrible kids during a rainy half term? Is that where you got these suggestions?” Zayn asks him.

“No,” Harry says. “I googled ‘what to do when you want to stop your most annoying former bandmate from going back to America immediately’.” 

“You should probably just ask him,” Zayn says.

“Don’t go back immediately,” Harry says, suddenly heartfelt.

Zayn holds eye contact with him, feeling his face heat up. “All right.”

There’s a moment of warmth between them that makes Zayn nervous. He finds himself laughing as he looks back at his plate, shaking his head a bit. “Let me know if your eggs are all right.”

“They’re perfect,” Harry says. “One last idea – what about the Harry Potter studio tour?”

Zayn sits up straight and stares at him. “Really?”

Harry grins. “Really.”

*

A car takes them all the way out through north London and to Watford, where the studios are. In a fucked up twist of fate, the driver takes them down the road in Hertfordshire where Zayn used to live – the first home he ever bought, where he lived with Danny and Ant and then later with Perrie. Where Gigi stayed when they were in London when they first got together. Where Harry came over sometimes, way before that. It’s weird seeing the solid wooden gates and the tall trees surrounding the property. He can’t really see inside but as far as he can tell it doesn’t look as though it’s changed much at all. He wonders what they did to his bar in the back garden, whether they knocked it down or transformed it into something else. He loved that house: it was the first place that was really his, his first refuge from the rest of the world. Then he hated it, because it reminded him of too many things that upset him and because it took about a thousand years to sell, and then when it finally did sell he found himself strangely devastated by its loss.

“Weird to be back?” Harry reaches out to touch his arm.

“Mm. Yeah,” Zayn agrees. “Lots of memories.”

Harry raises an eyebrow curiously, so Zayn elaborates. “Some good, some bad. Do you remember visiting me there?”

Harry wrinkles his nose, looking almost embarrassed. “I do. Vividly.”

Zayn exhales a laugh. “It was fun, right?”

“Lots of fun.” Harry sinks back into his seat and looks out of the window. He breathes mist onto it before wiping it away with his finger. “Were you really going to marry her?”

“Um.” Zayn’s brain short-circuits a bit. “Do you remember asking me that before?”

Harry winces. “Slightly.”

“I _did_ love her,” Zayn says. Their relationship didn’t end well, but she deserves that truth at least. “I suppose I did think we’d get married one day. I don’t know. It’s so long ago.”

Harry nods but he’s still frowning in a way that makes it obvious he’s still deep in thought. “You’re so good at making commitments to things. You just make these big decisions and then that’s it.”

“Do I?” It’s always weird to see yourself from someone else’s perspective.

“Yeah. You make these huge life-defining decisions and just leap into it. You decided to marry her. You decided to leave the band. You decided to move to America. You’re brave.”

“You moved too,” Zayn points out.

“But you moved permanently. I’ve always sort of hopped around everywhere,” Harry says. “It’s different.” He sighs. “I don’t know. I can’t decide if I respect it or if I think you’re mental.”

“Both?” Zayn hedges, and Harry’s face relaxes into a smile. 

It doesn’t take long to get to the studios after that. They park outside, although Zayn sees big purple double decker buses with Harry Potter pictures on the sides that are ferrying people to and from the train station, which makes him strangely jealous. He can’t remember the last time he sat on the top deck of a bus. Inside, they’re allowed to move past the lines, which is simultaneously embarrassing and a relief because there’s already a hum of attention from the people waiting in the queue. He doesn’t really want to be recognised and to have to take selfies with people and sign scraps of paper. It isn’t something he resents about the job particularly, but it sometimes takes a lot of time. He wants to focus on being a fan of something today, instead of having fans himself.

And the whole thing is incredible. They see the cupboard under the stairs, and the Great Hall, and they get to sit on the Hogwarts Express. Zayn wraps a Slytherin scarf around his neck and pretends to be holding onto the trolley going through the wall and grins over his shoulder as Harry takes a photo of him. Afterwards he texts it to his mum, who immediately replies saying ‘my handsome boy’ with four heart emojis and then ‘WHY the evil house?’.

Harry paws at the available scarves as Zayn texts back ‘Slytherin is very misunderstood !!!’. “Which one am I?”

Zayn looks up from his phone. “Do you know the house traits?”

Harry looks uncertain. “Sure.”

“Gryffindor is bravery,” Zayn tells him because he’s obviously bullshitting and knows nothing. “But they’re kind of obnoxious too. People underrate Hufflepuffs because their house emblem is a badger and because they’re supposed to be friendly, but badgers are vicious and tenacious too, so I think they’re pretty cool. I reckon Niall is a Hufflepuff. Slytherin is all about ambition. I actually think that JK Rowling treated them unfairly – what?”

Harry’s smiling. “Nothing.”

“Are you laughing at me?” Zayn asks, suddenly uncertain.

“No. This is nice,” Harry says. “I forgot about this.”

“Oh.” Zayn isn’t sure how to respond.

“No, I mean – I’ve seen a lot of pictures of you looking moody. Not that that’s a bad thing,” Harry hastens to add. “You look really fit too—”

“Thank you,” Zayn mutters.

“You’re welcome,” Harry says. “But you’re also an absolutely colossal nerd, and I remember liking that a lot, and I sort of forgot about it amidst all the extremely sexy pouting. Tell me about the other house now. Ravenclaw?”

“Yeah.” Zayn pushes his hair back off his forehead. “They’re the clever ones. Or the ones who prize knowledge – I suppose those things aren’t really the same thing. Their saying is, ‘wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure’.”

“You can quote that?”

“I’ve read the books a _lot_.” When he was homesick, when he couldn’t sleep, when he needed cheering up.

“Huh.” Harry picks up a blue Ravenclaw scarf. “Am I too thick for this one?”

“No,” Zayn says. “You need to reread the books. It’s actually about choice. In the first book, Harry asks to be put in Gryffindor, not Slytherin. It’s about how our choices shape our lives. You can pick whichever house you want.”

“Then I pick the wit beyond measure one,” Harry says. He flings the scarf around his neck and goes up to the trolley, grabbing onto it before arching his back and throwing a flirty smile over his shoulder like he’s a pin-up girl on a holiday postcard.

“Fucking hell,” Zayn mutters, and takes several photos.

*

As it turns out, it’s a brilliant day. They drink butterbeer, which is not nearly as delicious as he wanted it to be, and they walk down Diagon Alley, and Zayn’s throat gets tight with emotion when they round a corner and see a replica of Hogwarts that’s built with such incredible detail that he feels as though he could lean in and see all the characters scurrying around. He can feel Harry’s eyes on him and he can see his smile out of the corner of his eye, so he turns to look at him. “What?”

“Nothing. You look happy.” Harry nudges Zayn’s shoulder with his own. “It’s nice.”

“I _am_ happy.” He’s even happier once he’s examined the Hogwarts model from every possible angle and taken eighty-two photos of it, and he’s the absolute happiest once he’s bought bags and bags of merchandise from the giftshop. Harry joins in: he really goes for the whole Ravenclaw thing, buying a scarf and a set of robes and a house badge that he pins on his shirt. In the car afterwards he takes out a little model of Dobby and presents him to Zayn. “He’s my favourite,” Zayn says. He can’t stop himself grinning.

“I thought so.” Harry sounds pleased with himself. “Because of your cat.”

“My baldy baby,” Zayn says. “Thank you.”

“What’s he like?” Harry asks. It’s probably not the smartest question to ask because it means that he has to sit through twenty minutes of Zayn explaining Dobby’s foibles and passions and temperaments and hobbies, but in his opinion it’s Harry’s own fault for expressing any interest. He chips in at times, tells him that Maisie also likes playing with water, that Evie once dropped onto his shoulders from the top of the curtains and Harry almost had a heart attack and then she sank her claws into the back of his skull and wouldn’t let go. When they were younger, Zayn always had the impression that Harry never really understood the whole pet thing. It’s an excellent change to have gone through.

That evening they order Chinese food from a nice place around the corner from Harry’s house, and then Harry suggests trying on their new Hogwarts robes, which also entails chasing each other around the house and trying to cast spells on each other. Funnily enough they don’t work, but Zayn lives in eternal hope that one day his Hogwarts letter will arrive. They put the first film on and sit down in front of the TV. Harry’s on his knees sucking Zayn’s dick before Harry-on-screen is even on the train to school, so on the whole it’s a pretty successful night.

By the time they get upstairs, Zayn’s feeling pretty fucked out. It isn’t like he’d push Harry away if he rolled onto him and stuck his hand inside his pants, but he also isn’t absolutely gagging for it. It was a long day and his feet hurt and he’s had a lot of sex over the past forty-eight hours. Harry seems to feel the same way: he goes to the bathroom after Zayn does and brushes his teeth, humming at the same time, sticking his head out of the en suite apparently solely so he can give Zayn a huge toothpastey smile. A glob falls onto the floor and he says “Shit!” before trying to scrub it up with his toe and disappearing back into the bathroom, as Zayn laughs at him. Finally Harry gets into bed beside him and clicks the light off and rolls over to put an arm over Zayn’s middle. “What do you want to do tomorrow?” He smells so strongly of mint that it’s off-putting.

“I’m going up to Bradford to see my family.” He arranged it earlier when they were waiting for their food. “It’s been a while.”

There’s a pause, and then Harry says, “All right then. You going to be there for a while?”

“Don’t know yet. Depends, really.” He isn’t totally sure what it depends on, but he knows that it does. Whether it’s awkward, whether he feels smothered, whether he wants to escape quickly or whether he wants to stay there too badly. If that’s the case, he knows he’ll need to get out of there as quickly as possible, because he loves his family and he loves Bradford but he needs to make sure that he continues to lead his own life. 

Harry wriggles away from him, which is a relief because his arm over Zayn’s stomach was actually quite heavy. “It’s nice you’re seeing them.”

“Yeah.” Zayn presses the side of his face against a cool part of the pillow. “It should be good.” He’s not stupid: he knows, mostly, what’s going on here. When they were younger they were all about poor communication and what was said between the lines, and right now is no different. He’s spent the last two days pretty much solidly with Harry, which is actually pretty nuts and something that he can’t think about too hard without his entire head falling off and steam pouring out of the neck-stump where his skull used to be. But nothing lasts forever and whatever’s happening right now between them is no exception. He hasn’t stopped long enough to actually consider what’s going on, but the fact that he doesn’t particularly want to leave is an indicator that it’s time to go: when there are no resentments, when there’s nothing shitty there between them. 

“Did you say you were seeing Niall?” Harry asks after a moment. “When’s that happening?”

Zayn frowns into the dark. “I don’t know. I should work it out.” It seems less urgent now Niall isn’t standing in front of him anymore. He’s spent ten years without these boys and he was absolutely fine, so restoring their friendships isn’t top of his to-do list any more. It would be nice, but that’s all. He’s always been good at the whole out of sight, out of mind thing. Fucking around when his girlfriends were away. Losing friendships when they weren’t with him every day any more. Doing things his mum would hate and disapprove of just because she was an ocean away.

“The other boys too,” Harry prompts. “They’d love to see you.”

Zayn isn’t really sure what to say so he just wriggles a bit and then mumbles, “Mmm. I’m really tired, is it all right if I go to sleep?” 

“Yeah. Course.” A rustle of sheets and then he feels Harry reach across to kiss him on the lips. Zayn holds him there for a moment, kisses him again and again, and then releases him back to his side of the bed.


	3. THREE.

THREE.

He sleeps in the back of the car on the way to Bradford, spread out on the back seat with his seatbelt awkwardly twisted around his waist. The driver stops at a service station and Zayn buys a packet of Wotsits and lets them dissolve one by one on his tongue before licking the orange dust off his fingers afterwards. When they finally pull up outside Zayn’s mum’s house, his back and knees are aching persistently, which he’s pretty sure didn’t happen when he was twenty and sat still for ages. In the fresh damp air he stretches and touches his toes and feels his back click worryingly before grabbing his bag from the boot and waving the driver off. Before he can get to it the front door opens and his mum zooms out of it and attacks him with a hug, pressing the side of her face against his shoulder before looking up at him and beaming, his face cradled in her hands. “Oh, it’s so good to see you. You look so handsome.”

“Thanks, Mum.” He hugs her again, realising that he forgot to stop off to buy her anything, flowers, chocolate, handbags, whatever, but he’s pretty sure that she won’t care. When he steps into the house he can smell food, and his stomach instantly rumbles at the thought of it. 

At the kitchen table she makes him sit down and heaps a plate for him. “Eat,” she orders him, and watches him with satisfaction as he inhales half of the food on there. Then she frowns at him and takes a seat herself and says, “Zayn, you’ve been so quiet about everything that’s been going on. We barely even knew about the concert. You know your sisters would have loved to go.” The unspoken message is, _And so would I_.

He feels his stomach tighten with familiar guilt. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know until I was pretty much onstage that I was even going to be there, and I didn’t want to let anyone down.”

She nods, conceding that he’s got a point. “Will there be more band concerts?”

He looks at her carefully. “Do you think there should be?”

She lets out a breath as she studies his face, as though she’s trying to find the answer there. “Would it be good for you?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “If we did it the right way.”

“What about your music?”

“I don’t know that either.” He tears off a piece of roti and presses it into the dahl on his plate. It’s his dad’s dahl, he can tell that, because no one – not even his mum – makes dahl as good as his dad’s. “Do you think it would be sad to see five old men wandering round onstage?”

“No sadder than it was to see five young boys up there,” she says, and reaches out to stroke his cheek. “It’s your decision, my love. I know that no matter what I say, it won’t make a difference to what’s going on in that head of yours.”

Zayn hates to admit it, but that’s probably true. Nothing tells him what the right path is more than his gut does. Following his heart is the only map he’s ever really set out for himself. He knows that he’s hurt people along the way every now and then, and that he’s been hurt too, but it doesn’t feel like something he can really change. He picks at a piece of chicken with his fork and takes his phone out of his pocket to check it. For some reason he thinks Harry might have texted him, but he hasn’t. Megan’s sent him a picture of a plate of snails, which makes him want to be sick on himself, and Safaa’s texted him saying ‘U NEVER SAID U WERE COMING HOME!!!’ with way too many emojis, but that’s it. Nothing else. That makes sense.

He walks off the gigantic plate of food by pulling on one of his dad’s massive hoodies and going down to the gym where he works. It’s only about a ten minute walk and when he gets there his dad’s face brightens so quickly that it’s almost funny before he pulls Zayn into a hug that’s so tight it hurts. He’s in between training sessions so they’ve got time to have a bit of a catch up. He asks Zayn what New York’s like this time of year – “About the same as here, Dad” – and how long he’s staying – “I never know the answer to that question, Dad” – and whether he’s made any new music recently, which is the best question of all because Zayn’s in the middle of doing some writing in New York so he gets to play his dad a couple of demos and talk him through them. They’re sitting together in the little staffroom at the gym, which smells strongly of feet and body spray and the rubber mats that Zayn remembers from PE lessons at school, and it seems like a weird but fitting place to spend time together. He plays his dad a melody and tries to beatbox badly to demonstrate what the drums are going to sound like, and shows him a poem he’s written that he wants to turn into lyrics. By the time his dad has to get back to work he seems happy and content with what Zayn’s doing, which is to be honest all he could hope for.

It’s a quiet time in Bradford. His sisters and his brother in law and Doniya’s kids come over for dinner, and it’s brilliant because they all take the piss out of him and talk over him. It takes time for his nieces and nephew to warm up to him, but he’s always been of the opinion that the more piggybacks you offer small children, the more they’ll love you, and so it works out all right as he runs up and down the stairs festooned with toddlers. When Doniya and the kids and her husband have gone home, his mum roots out their old battered DVD of _Devdas_ and opens a box of chocolate biscuits. 

“Remember when we were little,” Waliyha says around a mouthful of chocolate wafer, “and you always bought those massive tubs of broken biscuits?”

“They were excellent value,” his mum says automatically like clockwork, the way she always does.

“My favourite thing about Zayn being a millionaire,” Waliyha says, “is that the quality of biscuits in this household has improved massively.” 

Zayn’s tempted to throw the remote control at her head, but then he thinks about it for a moment and realises it’s probably one of his favourite things about having money too. Instead he settles for saying “Will you shut your mouth?” and his mum shouts “IT’S STARTING,” as the credits come up on the screen, and Waliyha opens her mouth to show him a disgusting mess of chewed up biscuit on her tongue, and his dad says, “Please don’t do that,” and Safaa says, “Mum! Mum, run the film back, Dad’s talking over it,” and his mum says “Who’s got the remote control?” and of course no one answers so she says it more loudly and threateningly and Zayn realises that he is, in fact, the one who’s got the remote control, and so he passes it over, and she fumbles with it and can’t work out how to rewind the film, and Waliyha says, “You’re running it forward instead!” and his mum says “Bugger it!” which is pretty strong swearing for her, and his dad laughs at them all, and, right: this is what it’s like. This is what it’s like to be home.

*

He goes to bed early and wakes up late, and when he checks his phone he sees that nobody has texted him all night. When he’s in the shower he hears it buzz, which makes him feel like slightly less of a billy-no-mates, but when he gets out of the shower and looks at the screen, water from his hair dripping onto it, he sees that it’s Niall saying _Thought we were gonna meet up? Ball in your court mate_ , which makes him anxious when he remembers that he hasn’t texted any of the boys back at all. They know what he’s like, right? But the fact that they know what he’s like doesn’t mean that they have to enjoy what he’s like. Or that he can’t change what he’s like, come to think of it.

He spends the day doing a big food shop with his mum and then being carted around to visit all of his relatives in the area. Some of them treat him like he’s the biggest celebrity on the planet and they’ve never even met him before, some of them treat him like he’s a twat who’s absolutely up his own arse, and some of them talk to him like he’s a human being, which is his preferred way of going about things. Even then it seems to be hard for them to know what to say to him and every so often he remembers that his life actually is pretty different from most people’s. It doesn’t feel weird because it’s his reality, but even everyday references that they make seem foreign to him. He hasn’t been to a shopping centre in years because he’s afraid of getting mobbed. He hasn’t had to deal with a bus breaking down and getting stuck on it since he was a teenager. Most people his age at home have kids now, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to be woken in the night by your crying baby or to have to take your four-year-old back to the toyshop because he stole a whole handful of mystery Lego packets after stuffing them into his anorak pockets. He just smiles along and hopes for the best. He still wants kids though. He holds his cousin’s baby daughter Maya: she’s entered that stage where she’s a little chunk instead of fragile and breakable, and when he tickles the sole of her little foot she giggles up at him and dribbles down her chin. He wipes it away with the side of his hand and kisses her forehead and feels as though his heart is cracking open with love.

That night Safaa’s going out with her friends. She offers to cancel her plans because he’s home, but he pushes her towards the front door and tells her to have a brilliant time. She seems so old: she’s made the transition from high heels to stampy boots, which as far as he’s aware means that she’s starting to find her own style. Once Gigi told him, in all seriousness, that the moment she realised she was a woman and not a girl was when she started focusing on skincare instead of makeup. At the time he mostly just laughed at her and thought it was ridiculous but now he can see what she meant. Doing things that will help you out in the future instead of what feels good in the present: wearing comfortable shoes instead of ones that will give you blisters, clearing your skin instead of covering your blemishes. Maintaining your relationships instead of trying to build them all over again. That’s one he should probably think about more.

His mum cooks again and he sits at the dining room table with her and his dad. They’re both pretty religious – his dad prays regularly, neither of them eat any pork products, they both fast during Ramadan – but one thing they’ve never been opposed to is having a drink every now and then. They crack open a bottle of red wine, and even though Zayn’s very much over thirty, there isn’t much that makes him feel more like a real-life grown-up than drinking around his parents and not being told off for it. Alcohol has never really seemed to affect his dad much but his mum always gets giggly pretty quickly, so dinner’s a proper laugh: she tells them all the salacious gossip about her friends that she’d usually keep quiet about, and then when his dad goes into the living room to watch a bit of TV she reaches out and takes hold of Zayn’s hand and says, “Now we need to talk.”

“That’s ominous.” He smiles at her but she just looks serious. “What’s up?”

“I feel as though I only get part of your life,” she tells him. “I know that a parent doesn’t need to know everything about their child’s life, but sometimes I worry—”

“I’m fine, Mum. You don’t have to worry about me.” He can’t bear the thought of her worrying about him. 

“I feel as though you might be lonely,” she tells him, her eyes wide and solemn. “I would fly out more but – but…”

But it’s his money she’d need to use to fly, which means that she can’t really come without an invitation, and he probably doesn’t invite her as often as he should. He winces, and takes another sip of wine. “You can come and see me any time you want, you know that.”

“Of course.” She sounds more certain than she probably is. “Are you seeing anyone at the moment?”

“I’m still seeing my therapist, if that’s what you mean,” he says, knowing that it isn’t.

“That’s excellent,” she says, “but not the point.”

He sighs at her. “No, I’m not seeing anyone at the minute.”

“Where have you been staying for the last few days?” she asks. “Since the concert?”

“At my flat in London.” His cheeks flare with heat. She raises an eyebrow, and he adds: “And I spent some time with Harry too.”

“I saw the photos,” she says, and pats his hand. “He was a nice boy, Zayn. I know you were both cross—”

“I don’t think we’ve stopped being cross,” Zayn says. “I think that we just had a momentary ceasefire.” He didn’t realise that until the words were out of his mouth, but it feels true, which isn’t fantastic. He and Harry didn’t talk about anything real or important, other than the whole anxiety thing. They didn’t talk about what happened when they were younger, or how much time they spent lying to other people, or how much time they spent lying to each other and to themselves. They didn’t talk about the way they both felt after Zayn left the band. They didn’t talk about the shitty little digs that Harry made about him. They didn’t talk about the time that Zayn said that they were never friends – which even now, he maintains is true. Their dynamic was never friendship. They kissed not long after meeting and after that it was too complicated to be just friends. They’ll probably never be able to manage it. Zayn loved Perrie and even then every chance he got with Harry, he took it. He was terrified of people finding out and he did it anyway. He didn’t even like Harry sometimes and yet he was so intoxicating that Zayn still couldn’t let him go. Like a puppet waiting for Harry to pull his string. They have never been friends. They will never be friends. The last couple of days have been good fun, but that’s all. They were a holiday from everything else. They were a throwback. They were the kinds of days that they would probably have liked to have twelve years ago. That’s all.

His mum sighs at him. “I trust you to tell me if you need me. All right?”

“All right.” He smiles at her, although it doesn’t feel convincing.

She gets up, bends, drops a kiss onto his cheek. Then she goes to join his dad in the living room. Zayn follows her and pauses for a moment as she sits down next to his dad and leans against his side. His dad curls an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in closer and whispers something that makes her laugh. They’re about a hundred years old and they’re still in love: how is that possible? Zayn looks at them for a moment longer and then he slips upstairs to his room.

*

He goes back to London the next day. On the drive on the way down, he looks at his text messages from the last few days. Without letting himself think about it too hard, he calls Niall, who picks up on the second ring and sounds extremely puzzled as he says “Hello? Zayn?”

“Hi.” Zayn hadn’t planned what to say, so this is going terribly already. After a second he says, “You said the ball was in my court.”

“So it was.” A moment as Niall digests it. “Well, all right then, fella. How’s it going?”

“Ah, pretty good. I’ve been up in Bradford visiting my family.”

“Oh yeah? How are they doing?”

“Really well. Did you know my sister’s got three kids now?”

“I didn’t,” Niall says, sounding more enthusiastic and interested than Zayn had thought he would. “That’s brilliant. I bet you’re a good uncle.”

“Not as good as I’d like to be,” Zayn admits.

“Well, it’s hard,” Niall says. “You know. The distance.”

“Right.” This feels surprisingly easy, so much so that it’s a massive relief. It doesn’t feel awkward, it doesn’t feel shitty. He says, almost surprising himself, “I’m going back to my flat in London now. Do you want to come over for a bit?”

“Today?” Niall asks, sounding surprised.

Zayn feels immediately foolish for asking. Niall probably has all sorts of plans for his day that don’t involve recalcitrant former bandmates and awkward video game playing and talking about feelings. “Don’t worry about it, maybe another time,” he says immediately.

“No, it’s all right. In fact, it’s great. I’m just surprised. Let me jiggle a few things around and it should be absolutely fine.” A moment. Zayn imagines him looking in a diary, or at a screen, frowning at a schedule. “Will I be there at around three? I’ll bring some beers.”

“Perfect!” Zayn says. There’s probably too much enthusiasm in his voice, because Niall laughs, low and happy, before they hang up the phone.

His flat has been freshly cleaned, because he was supposed to stay there when he got to London instead of haring off to rim Harry Styles, so it smells like citrus and the cushions on the sofas have been plumped up. If he’s honest, it doesn’t feel like his real home: he chose the artwork and some of the furniture but it doesn’t feel lived in. Everything is too new and shiny still, so he kicks his boots off and spreads out the contents of his backpack on his bed and washes his hands in the bathroom so he can accidentally on purpose speckle the sink with soapy water. He looks at the local restaurants on JustEat and gets worried about which ones might be good and which ones might give them the shits, so he decides to go with Domino’s if they decide to order anything. In the fridge there are six gleaming bottles of Bud alongside six bottles of Corona and three limes, a selection of dips, milk for tea that isn’t quite out of date, and a few other items that someone must have arranged for him. Sometimes the idea of going to a supermarket himself feels like it would be a novelty, although he’s aware that’s extremely fucked up. There are Doritos on the counter and a box of teabags still in its cellophane, along with a bottle of JD and some red wine that he’s pretty sure is excellent and expensive even though his tastebuds are unaware of any difference between a bottle that cost five hundred pounds and one that cost four ninety-nine from the local corner shop. Still, it’s a nice thought.

He’s in the middle of trying to remember how to turn the TV on when his phone rings. When he answers it, Niall says “Yo! Buzz me up!” and so he does.

Niall with dark hair is still weird, but Zayn tactfully doesn’t mention that. Instead he opens his arms and they hug awkwardly, with more back-slapping than Zayn suspects either of them is happy with. Then Niall says “I’d murder my own mother for a cup of tea,” and Zayn goes to switch the kettle on. They stand in the kitchen together, both of them in socked feet. When Niall moves he leaves little sweaty footprints behind on the floor, which makes Zayn feel strangely comforted. “So,” Niall says, breaking a silence that Zayn wasn’t quite sure was comfortable or not, “what have you been up to for, um, ten years?”

“This and that,” Zayn says. He isn’t sure where to start. Niall probably knows the basics: the music, the fashion, the girlfriends. Zayn knows all those things about him too. It’s the little things that they’ve both missed out on in each other’s lives. Zayn wants to know if he’s finally started to like goat’s cheese, and if he ever had to have the odd-looking mole on the back of his thigh removed, and if he’s still got Zayn’s copy of _Cathedral_ , and if he’s read it, and if so, what he thought. He frowns. “It’s hard to know where to begin, isn’t it?”

“It really is,” Niall agrees with a laugh that sounds easier than it probably is. “I liked that song you released earlier this year. _Embrace It_? Really excellent.”

“Do you listen to my stuff then?” Zayn asks, intrigued despite himself.

“I do,” Niall says. “I like most of it. Some isn’t my sort of thing, but I expect my stuff isn’t all your sort of thing either.”

Zayn shrugs in agreement. Niall’s still all about the guitars and the catchy melodies. He reminds Zayn a bit of Ed Sheeran, who he’s never been a huge fan of, but he doesn’t think it’s bad music. One of the things he still struggles with is the concept that things he dislikes aren’t automatically bad, but right now he’s aware that even though he’ll never love some of Niall’s songs, a lot of people do, and they definitely aren’t wrong. “I like a lot of it,” he says, which is true, although he sometimes thinks that he likes it mostly because it’s Niall and he knows that Niall has a really excellent heart and means every word he sings. “I liked the one about maps.” He hums a few bars of it. 

“Did you?” Niall looks pleased. “That’s an album track, not a single. So you’ve properly listened then?”

“Of course I have. We were mates,” Zayn says. “I never stopped giving a shit.” The kettle finishes boiling and he makes two mugs of tea, somehow remembering exactly how Niall likes his. In Zayn’s drink, dust floats to the surface of the tea, because the mugs haven’t been used in months. He looks at it for a moment before deciding he can’t be arsed to care. 

They go through into the living room, armed with a sharing bag of Doritos each. Niall grabs the tub of salsa too for good measure. “So what have you been up to?” Zayn asks him.

“Well, I’m engaged,” Niall says cheerfully, ripping his Doritos packet open.

Zayn goggles at him. “What?” He narrows his eyes. “Are you serious?” Somehow he’s lost the ability to tell. 

Niall laughs at him. “Deadly. I hope she knows it because if she doesn’t show up to the church it’s going to be embarrassing.”

“Bloody hell.” Zayn lets out a breath. Niall, getting married. Louis getting married didn’t feel strange at all, that was a given from pretty much the first moment he met Eleanor, but for some reason the idea of Niall getting married is making him feel a bit shaky. He knows that Liam was with a model called Kizzy for a few years before they broke up last year and he’s seen news stories about Harry going out with a few women as well as Alex the stupid-haired designer and whoever the owner of the magnum sized cock was, but he hasn’t seen anything in the news that’s indicated that Niall was in a relationship that serious. It makes him feel empty. Back when he proposed to Perrie, Niall wasn’t outwardly hostile about it but he did laugh about it and say that Zayn was absolutely mad one too many times. And now Niall’s getting married and Zayn is by himself except for a hairless cat in another continent. The world moves in mysterious and not altogether welcome ways. A moment too late he says, “That’s brilliant, Niall. That’s absolutely brilliant. Mate, I can’t tell you how happy I am for you. Who’s the girl?”

Niall’s beaming, looking extremely pleased with himself. “She’s called Abby. She’s not in the industry. She’s actually a book editor, she works with cookbooks and humour and novelty non-fiction, that kind of thing.”

“Fucking hell, you’ve even got her jargon down,” Zayn says, and Niall laughs, like joy is just tipping out of him and he can’t quite contain it. “I’d love to meet her at some point,” Zayn adds, tentatively.

“Absolutely,” Niall says. “That’d be nice.” He doesn’t sound like he believes it’s actually going to happen, which is annoying but not unjustified. 

“Let me see a picture then,” Zayn says, and Niall hands over his phone. On the screen there’s a picture of him with a blonde girl who’s pretty in a subtle way that Zayn has to admit wouldn’t quite catch his eye. She’s got a slightly sardonic smile and a mojito in her hand and there’s a little button on the corner of the collar of her denim jacket that says ‘DON’T TALK TO ME WHEN I’M READING’. She looks normal, and not famous, which Zayn would never say aloud but which on the whole is probably a good thing. “She’s beautiful,” he tells Niall. “She looks like she probably gives you shit.”

Niall takes it in the way that he intends, thank God, and laughs. “She absolutely does. She’s brilliant – she thinks I’m a proper idiot. I love it.”

“And you’ve managed to keep it quiet?” Zayn asks, a little wistfully. He’s never been good at that. 

“Oh yeah.” Niall nods firmly. “No social media, nothing like that. It feels nicer that way, and I think it’s easier to develop something that’s real without people looking at you.”

That makes a lot of sense. Sometimes he felt weighed down by the expectations that other people had of his relationships: all the people who thought that he and Gigi were star-crossed lovers, destined to be together, when actually they’d been pretty normal and had arguments twice a week about him leaving damp towels on her bathroom floor. When people think you’re perfect, it’s easy to take note of the ways in which you are decidedly not. It was similar with the band: it was hard to keep up the illusion that everything was great and happy and fine, whereas if he’d just been trudging around getting on with things instead of trying to smile all the time, it might have been easier to not feel terrible. As ever, Niall is by far one of the most sensible people Zayn has ever met. “I think that’s excellent,” Zayn says with honesty. “You’re doing it in a really clever way.”

There must be something in his voice that sounds not completely happy, because Niall narrows his eyes thoughtfully. “And what about you?” he asks, his voice a little more gentle. “You’re not seeing anyone, are you?”

“Not right now.” The image of Harry asleep next to him springs into his mind unbidden. Standing together in the Harry Potter studios, watching the model of Hogwarts under its blue lights, Harry’s shoulder next to his. He clears his throat and says, in the name of trustworthiness, “Me and Harry have been sort of…”

Niall smiles and rolls his eyes at the same time. “You and Harry were always sort of…” He mimics Zayn’s tone affectionately. “At least this time you don’t have a girlfriend. You reckon you’re going to turn it into something real?”

Zayn grimaces. The thought of making it official is fucked up, but so is the thought of it not being real already. It felt real at the time but even now, days later, it’s harder to think of the time he spent with Harry as something that actually happened instead of a strange but nice dream. He wonders what Harry’s doing right now and whether he’s thinking of him. “Probably not. We’d end up murdering each other. And I don’t think he’d want to.”

Niall shrugs. “Fair enough. I haven’t really spoken to him about it, so maybe not. I think he enjoys the single life.”

What Niall was supposed to say was, _Of course not, Zayn, he’s probably madly in love with you, after all who wouldn’t be?_ so the fact he’s acknowledging the obvious fact that this might not even be an issue because Harry might not even want it is frustrating and slightly insulting. Even so, he’s probably right. Zayn shrugs a shoulder and says, “Anyway, fuck it. D’you want to see what’s on TV?”

“Maybe there’s some golf,” Niall suggests, and snorts at the dirty look Zayn shoots him.

*

They decide to watch as many Marvel movies as they can get through, and then they order Domino’s just like Zayn planned. Afterwards they try to throw as many Skittles in each other’s mouths as possible, although Zayn’s aim is terrible so he keeps accidentally hitting Niall in the eye and on the chin. Once he manages to throw the Skittle directly down his windpipe so Niall surges upwards with goggle eyes and wheezes until it’s out again. “You were no fucking help!” he says afterwards, teary with laughter. “I can’t believe you invited me over here to let me die!” and Zayn shrugs and says “Tough shit,” and throws another Skittle that hits Niall right on the tip of his nose.

When it’s almost three in the morning and they’re both bleary-eyed with sleepiness, Niall looks over at him more seriously and says, “Do you remember talking about that reunion thing the other night?”

“Vaguely,” Zayn says. He can feel a sense of foreboding creeping down over his body, like he’s going to have to disappoint Niall and today will all have been for nothing because Niall will leave hating him anyway. “Why?”

“Because I was thinking.” Niall rubs his hands over his face and sighs. “I think Liam and Louis are quite up for it, but I’m just not one hundred percent there. It felt brilliant all being together but I don’t think it’s necessary to actually get back together, do you know what I mean?”

Zayn does. He nods, heady relief creeping over him. “I do.”

Niall’s still frowning. “I mean, I know you probably wouldn’t want to do it and Harry almost certainly wouldn’t, but I reckon they thought I’d be a shoo-in. And honestly I loved the band, those days were magic, we made something brilliant, but that doesn’t mean that if we did it again, it would still be magic, you know?”

“We were good onstage the other night,” Zayn points out, playing devil’s advocate.

“That’s true.” Niall’s shoulders sag a bit. “But I just sort of think – why not just be friends now, the five of us? See each other when we can? I’m in a good place with the other lads and I think that now you and me are…” He looks at Zayn like he’s waiting for him to finish the sentence.

“We’re good,” Zayn says. He wants them to be good, so if he says it aloud maybe it’ll be true.

Niall puffs out a breath. “Yeah. I mean, give it a bit of time, but we’re decent now. And I don’t want to mess it all up with band stuff. We’d never want the same thing, we’d argue, it would be shit – and then maybe we’d release new music—”

“I don’t want to release new music,” Zayn says immediately. A couple of shows, he could manage that just fine, but having to record songs he doesn’t really feel anything about, not having his contributions noted – and in the end not even wanting to make contributions? He’s been there before and he hated it.

“Well, exactly,” Niall says. “And if the rest of us released new music then maybe it would be shit and the fans would be disappointed. And you know what? I like my life. I want to get married to Abby and maybe have some kids…”

“You’d be a great dad,” Zayn says, without even thinking about it. The words just pop out of his mouth, complete honest truth.

“Yeah?” Niall’s eyes crinkle. “Thanks.”

“Absolutely.” Zayn throws another Skittle at him. Niall opens his mouth and ducks for it but it bounces off his cheekbone anyway; he fishes amid the sofa cushions for it and comes up with a fistful of them instead, which he obviously immediately throws at Zayn’s face. They tinkle off him like hail and Zayn finds himself laughing, finds himself somehow happy – finds himself relieved that they’re on their way to being mates again, that that gaping wound is being slowly healed, that maybe as the door on their old friendship closes, they’ll be able to find something new instead. 

Niall sleeps in the spare room. He has to leave early the next morning because he’s doing some charity golf thing, but they hug goodbye at Zayn’s front door. This time it feels natural – there’s no blokey backslapping, and Zayn finds himself hooking his chin over Niall’s shoulder the way he always does when he feels really comfortable with people. Niall turns to wave when he’s halfway down the corridor to the lift and when Zayn closes his front door he shuts his eyes for a second. His heart feels full inside his chest.

He checks his phone and finds that Megan has texted him a photo of a big square somewhere. It looks nice – it’s rainy there but the buildings are tall and golden and gorgeous. Underneath it she’s written _Madrid is sweet as hell!_ and then _Sorry, I feel I should remind you that there are only two nights until your break is over bc you have studio time booked – unless you want me to cancel it?_

He stares at the message and then out of the window. It’s raining in London today as well; he wonders what it’s like in New York. Maybe the skies are blue there. Dobby’s there. Zayn should really get home some time soon. He bites his lip and then texts back: _No, it’s cool. I want to get back to writing._

He really does. There isn’t much that helps him to make sense of the world the same way that writing does, and he definitely needs to make sense of it all right now. He hasn’t really been by himself much since he got to London – he was with Harry, and then with his family, and then with Niall – and so for the first time he opens up the internet and looks, tentatively, for reviews of the charity show. He doesn’t expect all of them to be about the band – that would be a pretty arrogant thing to assume because there were plenty of other acts on too. But as it turns out, it seems that they were the main attraction. What is really excellent is that Johannah’s Wish gets plenty of column space: most of the articles and reviews explain who she was, and what the charity aims to support, which is really the only thing that matters. One article mentions the amount of money that is expected to be raised in the end from streaming and merchandise and from purchases of the entire show, and it’s pretty insane. No matter how weird Zayn feels about the last week of his life, that money makes it worthwhile, those people who have been helped, the way that Jay has been honoured. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

Most articles are pretty positive about the show itself, which makes sense because it was all for charity. That means that even the critics who are the biggest pricks and try-hards won’t bother to slate anyone. The electric atmosphere is mentioned more than once, and the fact that the arena was full of twenty-somethings who were probably fans of One Direction back in the day. One reviewer is sour that they only played five songs; another is pissed off that they didn’t do any solo material. Yet another writer, who Zayn is pretty sure was once a fan of the band, is irate that only songs by Niall and Harry were played over the loudspeakers between performances. Should he be annoyed by that? He tries to dredge up some degree of outrage and comes up with nothing except relief that he didn’t have to hear Pillowtalk for the eight billionth time.

As it turns out, most professional writers seem to have forgotten that he left the band before they went on hiatus. Instead they focus on the chemistry between the five of them – reportedly still there – and their vocals, which were apparently on point. One reviewer sets up a huge rivalry between him and Harry, talking about their ‘competing powerhouse vocals’, which makes them sound pleasingly like Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, and the fact that they seem to have reconciled after so many years of ‘bad blood’ between them. He isn’t sure if there was bad blood really, although there was silence, which in many ways was worse. Some fans hate him for daring to go onstage with the other boys – ‘How can he take the focus off Jay and Louis like that?’ – but there are more who are happy that he did. As ever, there is no good answer except what he feels in his heart, which is that it was the right decision by far. And aside from that, more than the other boys, he knows how it feels to be an obsessive fan, to love something so much that it bleeds you dry, to live and breathe what you adore; he doesn’t know how they got lucky enough to be loved like that, but it happened somehow. For everyone who loved the five of them like that once upon a time – he’s glad that he gave them a happy ending.

*

Zayn falls asleep in front of the TV in the afternoon. He’s stretched out on the sofa underneath a red fluffy blanket that he found in a cupboard, and the heating is on full blast so he doesn’t have to wear anything except for a pair of baggy basketball shorts that he has to admit he looks totally ridiculous in. He wakes up when it’s dark outside. There’s a foul taste in his mouth and a really shit gameshow on TV and when he wanders over to the window he sees his reflection: his hair’s sticking up greasily on one side and his face is crumpled from sleeping awkwardly on a cushion. He would blame it on the jetlag but honestly he thinks he might just be the sort of person who requires multiple naps every day to be even a little happy. He feels disconcerted, as though he’s walking through water.

He looks for Dobby, feels a plunge of savage disappointment when he remembers that he’s in another country, hates himself for forgetting, and then checks his phone out of habit. His mum asking him if she wants her to post him the dirty socks and pants he accidentally left there after she’s washed them – no, he fucking doesn’t – and Niall, saying he had a good time and that they should do it again. _It sounds like we were on a first date_ , Zayn texts back, and Niall says _Ha ha wouldn’t want to make harry jealous ; )_ which makes Zayn feel slightly sweaty.

Harry hasn’t messaged him, which actually doesn’t matter. The time Zayn spent with him was always like a dream, isolated from the rest of his life, and this time is no different. Their relationship has always been odd. When they were on The X Factor, Zayn was technically dating Geneva, and Harry had an odd flirty thing going with – Rebecca, Zayn thinks it was, not Rebecca Ferguson, Rebecca with red hair who was in the same band as Geneva, whatever the hell they were called, Belle something. And yet sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night and saw that Harry was not in his bunk across the room, and it was immediately like some strange siren song. He’d find himself pushing back his sheets and going to find him, picking his way delicately over the floor, which was littered with clothes and bags and empty food wrappers and Coke cans. His bare feet between the mess, toes pressed into thick lush carpet – and then Harry, curled up on the sofa in the living room flipping through a magazine or getting a glass of water in the kitchen, always looking up at Zayn with a complete lack of surprise, as though he’d known all along that he would come.

That first furtive and eventually aborted blowjob in the bathroom. The blowjobs after that – the ones that they took more slowly, Harry making an effort to keep his hips still so he didn’t accidentally thrust into Zayn’s mouth and shock him. He remembers the way that Harry did it to him, almost exploratory and scientific, looking at Zayn for his reaction whenever he touched him – snaking a hand between his legs, past his balls, waiting to see how far he could go before Zayn froze and pushed him away. Zayn learned a thing or two about boundaries then: namely, that for him personally, it was fun to push them, and that a lot of the things he’d thought were impossible to enjoy were the absolute opposite.

The first time they fucked was a few months later. The aftermath of the X Factor was a blur of spending endless hours squashed in the backs of various vans, and performances at shitty clubs that he was amazed by at the time, and going home to his mum occasionally to sleep for fifteen hours straight. Then the X Factor tour happened. He remembers that he’d been looking forward to it at the time, to seeing their old friends like Matt and Aiden, to performing on big stages every night.

As it turned out, most of the tour involved a whole lot of sitting around, smoking outside with Aiden, feeling slightly nauseated on tour buses, and being hit on by a whole lot of girls – which, he can’t lie, he took advantage of some of the time. There were some nights with girls he barely knew and who made him feel awkward and unhappy afterwards, as though he wasn’t quite himself. There were some nights that he shared a room with Liam or Louis or Niall and he felt at home and safe and warm as he listened to them breathing in the opposite bed. And there were other nights that he shared a room with Harry. It started in the dark, tentative and doing their best to keep quiet and pretend it wasn’t happening even as they touched each other’s cocks, and by the end of the tour they barely managed to get their room door shut before their mouths were on each other’s. The tour started in Birmingham and then they had four nights in Dublin. By the last night he found himself in Harry’s bed, the two of them naked, sliding their hips against each other’s as they kissed messily. Looking back, he’s pretty sure that there was an embarrassing amount of leg humping going on. Harry was the one who asked him to press his fingers inside him, his hips tilted upwards and his eyes squinted so they were almost shut. Zayn remembers watching his face carefully, so carefully, waiting for a grimace of pain, afraid of hurting him. He remembers twisting his fingers and Harry’s eyes opening wide, jaw dropping as he swore, reaching out a hand to grab onto the sheets. Zayn did it again and was amazed when Harry came hard, his chest heaving and sweat beading along his collarbone. 

A week later, in Sheffield, Zayn fucked him for the first time. It had been a slow process – one finger, two fingers, three fingers, Harry on his hands and knees, miraculously confident even though Zayn had silently been horrified at the idea of being so vulnerable himself. He had bought lube a few days before, not sure which one to pick in Boots, running a finger along the shelf. “I’ve forgotten my toothpaste,” he’d claimed so he’d be able to go quickly to the shops, and Liam had smiled guilelessly at him and said “You can borrow mine if you like!” so that had been extremely fucking awkward.

Intimate gel, sensitive gel, Durex perfect glide. He hadn’t wanted to examine the bottles and tubes for too long in case someone saw him, and all the colours and descriptions were pretty confusing at a glance. He felt as though some of them would probably burn or maybe give Harry or even both of them some sort of weird infection. He didn’t really want to make himself even more sensitive in case he came halfway through sticking his cock inside, so that was out because he’d have to kill himself from the embarrassment of it. One of them was supposed to make you tingle, but he wasn’t sure that Harry would want his sphincter and potentially his colon to tingle. How far inside did you even go? What if there was shit? Surely there would be shit – and why the fuck was it that the concept of there being, possibly, shit, didn’t put him off doing it?

In the end he went for the plainest bottle there, along with a pack of condoms. He buried the two items in his basket underneath cheap two-for-one toothbrushes and a new facecloth and a two-pack of travel tissues and three bags of prawn cocktail crisps. He clutched his carrier bag to his chest as he went back up to his hotel room in the lift. After extricating the three packets of crisps he buried the bag in the bottom of his suitcase. Then he ate all three packets until his lips swelled up from all the chemical flavourings and stood on the balcony and worried. 

As it turned out there was no need to worry. The show went well. They went to the bar afterwards at their hotel and although Harry technically wasn’t allowed to drink because he was underage, he’d managed to charm the bartender into giving him a JD and coke. “I googled and it said you should have a drink beforehand,” he whispered into Zayn’s ear. “Apparently it makes you less tense.”

Zayn had never felt tenser before in his entire life, but then somehow they’d got up to the hotel room and everything had fallen into place. “Here we go,” Harry said and wriggled his eyebrows ridiculously, and Zayn found himself laughing, moving into his arms, kissing him, stroking his curly hair back from his forehead. They turned off the overhead lights and turned on the bedside lamps so the room glowed gold and cream. Before The X Factor, Zayn had not had sex with anyone, girl or boy. At the X Factor house he’d lost his virginity to Geneva and it had been sticky and fast and awkward and she’d said “Aww, it’s okay, don’t worry,” afterwards, which had been the worst possible thing she could say. Geneva had done it before. She’d pretty much shown him what to do, even if he hadn’t been very good at it. There had been girls since then, fans who had made their ways into his life, who he had realised only afterwards had never had sex before. Guilt had made him brusque with them, which in turn had made him feel more guilty. And now with Harry, a first time for them both – and God, he wanted to make it go well.

They had taken their time. They kissed for longer than ever before and then Zayn pushed fingers inside him until Harry was out of breath and incoherent with want. And then after that he put the condom on with shaking hands and Harry helped him with the lube – they spilled some of it onto the sheets and then laughed and kissed some more – and then Harry laid back again and Zayn started to slowly and carefully push into him. There was a battle between what felt good and what he wanted, physically: how tight, how warm, how incredible it felt, and how he wanted desperately to go slowly and to not cause any pain. And then, halfway, Harry said, “Hang on, one second,” and shifted his hips and exhaled as Zayn paused, poised over him, eyes on his face, the tiny crinkled frown between his eyebrows. Then Harry said, “It’s okay, I’m good,” and after that moment of stillness and honesty Zayn trusted him to tell him if it hurt.

It was awkward, a little. Harry was half-soft by the time Zayn was completely inside him and his cheeks flared pink and he said, “Sorry, I’m—” and Zayn said, “Nervous, I know, me too,” and kissed him, hand on his cock, until he was fully hard again. It hadn’t taken them long to find a rhythm together, his face buried in Harry’s neck, one of Harry’s hands knotted in his hair and the other on his back. He’d come quicker than he wanted to – that inevitability had been obvious right from the beginning – and then he hastily sucked Harry’s cock before swallowing, looking up to find Harry gazing at him with stars in his eyes, his lips parted with wonder. 

“Zayn,” he said, and pulled him up so that he was lying half on top of him, sweaty skin stuck together. Their faces were so close that he could see the pores on Harry’s nose, the way that his bottom lip was dry and cracked, and he felt such terrible protectiveness, as though if anyone ever hurt Harry he would make them pay for it, that he hadn’t been this careful with him and made those roses bloom on his cheeks for no reason at all. “Holy fuck,” Harry murmured, breath warm against Zayn’s cheek, fingers tangled in his hair. “That was so good.”

“It’ll be longer next time,” Zayn promised, nuzzling into the side of his face, pressing kisses just below his ear, inhaling the scent of him. “It’s gonna be better, it’s going to be properly amazing—”

“No, seriously, trust me, that was so good,” Harry said, and wriggled excitedly underneath him. “I just got fucked!” he chanted in Zayn’s ear and Zayn found himself laughing, moving off him, collapsing beside him, as Harry said, “You don’t understand. I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”

And then there had been the first seeds of worry sown. As though anyone could have been there, anyone could have done it, he’d been just a body, the first stop in the big gay adventure of Harry Styles—

But he hadn’t said anything, which had probably been his first real mistake.

Outside the skies are getting heavier, as though they’re going to crumble and explode into rain and thunder and lightning any second now. He likes his flat but he doesn’t feel at home there, with its sharp angles and sleek edges. He takes his phone and texts, _You busy tonight?_ to Harry and hits send without letting himself think about it too hard. Harry probably will be busy: it’s a Saturday and Harry’s always been annoyingly insistent that socialising is a good thing. He’s probably already out with his mates, he’s probably having a brilliant time. He probably won’t even see Zayn’s message.

And then Zayn’s phone buzzes. Two words: _Come over._

*

“So when are you going back to New York?” Harry’s gaze is disconcertingly frank. He’s leaning against his kitchen counter with a glass of wine in his hand and Maisie winding her way around his ankles. The kitchen smells incredible, because when Zayn texted him, he was in the middle of making an apple pie. When Zayn arrived, the pie had just come out of the oven and was sitting, steaming and fragrant, in its dish on the top of the stove. _I didn’t make the pastry myself_ , Harry had told him with a downturned mouth, as though somehow that would make Zayn lose his shit and call him incompetent before walking out. As it turned out, the pie was delicious. 

“Monday,” Zayn tells him. “I have studio time booked next week.”

“Next album?” Harry asks, an eyebrow quirked interestedly.

“Apparently so.” Zayn isn’t sure what it’s going to turn out to be just yet, but a new album seems like a safe bet. 

“Do you know what you’re going to write about yet?”

“I’ve got a couple of songs already, but mostly I never really know until I get in there,” Zayn says. The idea of it is always intimidating until he arrives at the studio and opens one of the notebooks that he scribbles ideas down in. Then songs seem to form themselves as he slots lyrics and melodies together, talks to producers, collaborates with whoever’s up for it. Working with other people is a great way to come up with fresh ideas, although the last week has had an odd effect on him: he kind of wants to work alone for once.

“Me neither,” Harry agrees. “Sometimes you have to write the song until you find out what it’s about. You just chip away until you find the heart of it.”

Zayn has no idea what the heart of anything is at the moment, but he nods anyway and takes a sip of his own wine. “What about you? Plans?”

Harry makes a face. “Photoshoot on Tuesday and Wednesday, flying to LA on Thursday for some work there…”

“It’s a hard life,” Zayn says, and Harry’s face cracks into a smile.

They make their way into his living room. Evie’s already in there, curled up half-asleep on one of the armchairs, and Maisie follows them, draping herself along the back of one of the sofas. Zayn tickles her stomach and she meows, lifting her paws to claw gently at his hand as she almost falls off the couch. “Get it together, Maisie,” Harry says, eyes crinkling into a smile. On the other sofa they sit together. Harry turns on the TV and flips through channels until he finds some slow guitar music: it’s the kind of song that isn’t Zayn’s thing, although he doesn’t dislike it either. The singer’s voice has some melancholy in it, which he always appreciates. “What happens this time?” Harry asks after a moment. “Do we stay in touch?”

Zayn blinks at him. “Do you want to?”

“Very much,” Harry says immediately.

Warmth sinks down over Zayn like a rosy veil. “Then – yeah.” He clears his throat. “Me too.”

There’s a tiny smile playing around Harry’s lips. He dips his head, messing with the fringing on the side of a cushion with his long fingers. “Good,” he says, before looking up again, sharper. “Because it was too long before. Ten and a half years too long. All right? Well, maybe ten years. We should have taken six months to cool off and then we should have…” He lets out a frustrated breath and waves his hands, almost patterning his rug with his wine. “Found common ground again. Talked it out.”

“We should have had an argument,” Zayn puts in.

Harry releases a breath. “Yeah. Yes. Jesus. I don’t want to look back on my life when I was eighty and have regrets. You know, I was going to text you to come over tonight right before you messaged me?”

“Really?” Zayn finds himself smiling at him.

“Yeah. We’re such a mess—”

It’s hard for Zayn to listen to what he’s saying after the metallic resonation of that ‘we’, but he does his level best.

“We’re _such_ a mess,” Harry emphasises, “but it was like this when we were younger too – we’d spend a little bit of time together and it would be so good and then we’d just fuck off to wherever. And I think it’s such a shame that we never bothered to explore any of it.” He laughs a bit. “I mean, you’re single for once.”

“I am,” Zayn agrees. He looks at Harry, at his familiar face, the shape of his mouth that Zayn has kissed so many times. He’s changed over the last ten years but Zayn would like to get to know those changes, he realises, get to know them as well as they used to know each other. He says, not completely serious, “So what do we do now? Go out on a date?”

Firmly, Harry says: “Yes.”

Zayn blinks at him, his throat suddenly tight. “Really?”

“Do you want to?” Harry is very visibly trying to keep his shit together. His knuckles are white on the stem of his glass, and he isn’t quite managing to make eye contact. 

Zayn thinks about it. Actually going out with _Harry_. Making something real between them finally. Honestly, he isn’t certain that it would be a good idea. Harry used to annoy him so much sometimes. But they’re older now and they’ve both chilled out, their sharp edges worn away by time and experience. And he’s tired of being alone, and he doesn’t want to go through the stress of the early days of a relationship with someone that he barely knows. Having to be on his best behaviour and worrying about what they’ll think when they finally get to know him and discover that he’s not cool, he wasn’t designed for fame, he isn’t happy a lot of the time. That he’s a little torn and shabby around the edges, that he loves so deeply that it hurts sometimes and he has to make sure that it doesn’t turn into something unhealthy. Harry knows all the shitty parts of him well, and he still wants to go out with him. And Harry is kind and generous and funny, and they have things in common. They have fun and they laugh a lot, and he makes Zayn feel understood.

He lets out a breath which sounds oddly shaky and says, “Yeah. Yeah, all right then. Let’s give it a go.”

Harry’s smile is blinding. “Yeah?”

“Sure.” Zayn’s still not completely certain. He feels as though he just stepped over some sort of precipice. But if it goes wrong, what’s going to change anyway? They haven’t spoken for the last ten years so why does it matter if they have some horrible breakup and never speak again? He looks at Harry hard, the faint lines around his eyes and the tilt of his nose and the freckles so faint on his cheeks. The soft silkiness of his hair falling halfway onto his forehead before the wave of it pulls it back again. His eyes, ringed by dark lashes, the colour of those eyes, sea-green and infinite. With startling clarity he thinks: _I could love you._

He shifts closer to Harry but doesn’t find himself brave enough to reach out and touch him yet. “Yes. Let’s do it.”

*

That evening, they go on a date. Harry reels off restaurant suggestions, sushi and pan-Asian and French, his voice nervous and jerky, but eventually they make the executive decision to go next door to the pub. Outside it’s still cold and damp, and Zayn doesn’t feel like enduring the awkwardness of sitting in the back of a cab and trying to make conversation as it winds its way into the centre of town. He doesn’t feel like having paparazzi wait outside a fancy restaurant for them, and spending an extra fifteen minutes there after they’ve paid the bill so that they can work out an exit strategy through the back door. Making this whole thing into a big deal will make it more frightening and increase the pressure on it. He doesn’t want them to fail before they’ve even begun.

Even still, he tries to make sure that he looks good. He looks through one of Harry’s wardrobes and finds an old black velvet Gucci jacket with gold embroidery on it, stitched carefully around the collar and hems, and matches it with black jeans and his last clean black t-shirt, which he hangs up in the bathroom while he showers so that the creases fall out of it and so that it smells a little less like the truth, which is that it’s been balled up in the bottom of his backpack for almost a week. He takes time styling his hair, too: he sweeps it back off his face and inspects his beard to make sure that it’s neatly trimmed and there aren’t any particularly insane hairs going AWOL. 

Downstairs Harry is waiting by the front door, tossing his keys up and down and catching them in one hand. His face softens into a smile. “You look nice.”

“I stole your jacket, sorry.” Zayn tries out a carefree smile, although there are nerves forming in his stomach.

“Keep it. It looks better on you.” Harry opens the front door and they dash outside into the cool night before Evie and Maisie manage to get out first. 

“I could just borrow it,” Zayn says, and adds to be daring: “when I visit.”

“You could,” Harry says. They walk side by side for a couple of paces and then Harry frowns and reaches decisively for Zayn’s hand. It sends a shock through his whole body: Harry’s warm dry palm, the hard metal bulk of his rings, his thumb rubbing reassuringly over Zayn’s. He presses in a little closer, his jacket brushing against Harry’s, and Harry squeezes his hand.

The walk to the pub is over too quickly. Inside they find a table and Harry takes his jacket off. Underneath it he’s wearing a silk shirt a little like the one he was wearing when Zayn saw him for the first time at the concert, almost a week ago now. This one is an exquisitely pale violet and it’s unbuttoned deep enough that Zayn can see his collarbone, the shadow of his muscles, a sprinkling of dark hair. He reaches out and tugs gently on the collar of the shirt. “This is nice.” He moves his hand upward to cup Harry’s jaw for just a second, feeling clumsy.

“Thank you.” Harry pretends to nip at his palm and Zayn finds himself laughing as he pulls away.

They order cold beers from the bar and then food. Zayn decides on fish and chips and mushy peas, and Harry goes for Quorn sausages and mash. The walls are wood-panelled and the carpets are old and worn, their pattern pressed down and merged into a pale crimson nothingness over time. There’s a fire roaring in the hearth on the other side of the room, crackling and bright, and a dog sprawled in the corner asleep on a large forest-green cushion, one of its legs occasionally twitching as it dreams. Fairy lights are twinkling around the windows and there’s a group of friends huddled around a table playing Jenga, all hushed silences and then cheering as they manage to pull bricks out one by one without disturbing the tower. Two old lads with red noses are at the bar with pints of bitter, and there’s a well-heeled couple eating in comfortable silence: she’s got pearls strung around her neck and he’s wearing brogues even though it’s a Saturday night, which means they’re probably both pricks but they can’t help it, so Zayn won’t judge them too harshly. Anyway, he’s pretty sure that the dog belongs to them, which means they can’t be completely awful. Thankfully it’s quiet and nobody seems to be looking at them. Hampstead is the sort of area where everyone is pretty used to seeing people who are sort-of famous, which means that the two of them are not even remotely a novelty. Zayn likes it. Underneath the table, he nudges Harry’s knee with his own and smiles toothily at him, excitement bubbling up through his chest.

Harry laughs across at him, the lines beside his eyes deepening. “Happy to be here? Cheers.”

They clink their beer glasses together. “I don’t even know what to say,” Zayn admits. “I’m no good at first dates anyway…”

“I usually try to be really smooth and impress them,” Harry agrees, “but I don’t get the feeling it’d work on you.”

“Try me,” Zayn says.

“Really?”

“Do it.” He sits back expectantly.

Harry wriggles in his seat. Then he stills, puts an elbow over the back of his chair, and says Joey Tribbiani style, “How _you_ doin’?”

Zayn finds himself laughing so loudly that the woman in pearls looks over at them disapprovingly. Harry looks delighted. “Very impressed,” Zayn tells him. “I’m in your thrall. You want to take me home and have your wicked way with me?”

“Actually, my food’s about to arrive, so maybe not,” Harry says, “but later. Absolutely later.”

“I’ve actually never been on a date with a bloke,” Zayn says. “I mean, I’ve obviously, um—”

“Chicka chicka bow wowed,” Harry says helpfully.

“Yeah,” Zayn agrees. “I’ve done that. But no dates.”

Harry nods and takes a sip of his beer. “Why not?”

Zayn lets out a breath. “I don’t know.” He looks deeper inside himself, at those low-lying feelings of uncertainty and insecurity. Holding hands with another man in public is a frightening thing. It’d be yet another reason for people to talk shit about him. He could inspire people – he knows that Harry has inspired people – but he feels as though that shouldn’t be his job if he doesn’t want it to be. He’s met men that he clicked with and who he liked and who he was attracted to. He’s flirted, given out his number, invited them over to hook up – and then done it again repeatedly in a way that had probably been verging on something that could have resembled dating. But there have been no candlelit dinners with men, no roses, no anniversaries, no declarations of love. “Fear, maybe.”

He’s half expecting Harry to turn on his charisma and tell him there’s nothing to be afraid of but instead he nods soberly, pressing his lips together. “I can understand that,” he says. “It took me a long time and even now I sometimes feel afraid.”

“You don’t seem afraid,” Zayn says.

Harry shrugs a shoulder. “Well, I am.”

It makes Zayn like him more. He reaches over and touches the back of Harry’s hand with his fingertips until Harry flips it over so it’s palm up and Zayn can interlace their fingers together. “But we’re not afraid of each other?” he checks.

“I don’t know.” Harry’s still more serious than Zayn would have thought, frowning, his gaze so penetrating that it makes Zayn want to look away from him. “I’ll keep you posted.”

That’s disconcerting. Zayn takes a breath and releases his hand, just in time for the waiter to come over and slide plates of food in front of them. His meal looks excellent: he douses the chips with salt and vinegar and splats a glob of ketchup onto the side of his plate. He misses proper chips when he’s in America, the steaming paper cones transparent with grease that he and his friends would share after school, cobbling together one pound fifty out of the change they had in their pockets. Sometimes they’d go for little cardboard boxes with chicken in too, golden and crispy, gnawing the bones on the back seat of the bus on the way home, going home with his fingers still shining with fat, his mum swatting him into the bathroom to wash his hands the second he got in the front door. 

“Hey, Zayn, look up there,” Harry says, pointing at the ceiling.

Zayn follows his finger obediently. “What am I looking at?” It just looks like ceiling as far as he can tell.

Harry’s laughing when Zayn looks back at him, and holding one of Zayn’s chips. “You’re so easy.”

“Absolutely fuck off,” Zayn tells him briskly, and reaches over to fork up a mouthful of Harry’s mashed potatoes. 

Harry lets him; Zayn can see him dimpling as he tries not to smile too hard. They eat in happy silence for a moment as underneath the table Harry’s ankle twines with his. Sometimes over the last ten years it felt as though he had a thousand things that he had to tell Harry, so many things that he was starting to lose them, they were spilling uncontrollably out of his head and all he had left was a vague, hopeless sense of missing him, but right now it feels as though there’s no real urgency. They’ve got _years_. Eventually he starts to tell Harry about how nice it was that Niall came over, and Harry tells him that he hasn’t properly spent time with the other lads in a while but he’d like to. Harry asks about his plans for Christmas, which are basically to come home and allow his mum to cook for him for a week, and somehow manages to wrangle a promise out of him to come to Cheshire to visit for New Year. “After all,” Harry says, “I’m going to want a New Year’s kiss.”

Zayn’s entire brain suddenly screams with an emotion he can’t quite name, but instead he just arches an eyebrow and says, “We’ll see.”

Harry laughs easily and starts to ask him about books he’s read – has he read any Zadie Smith, and of course Zayn’s read Zadie Smith, _White Teeth_ was excellent, and Harry recommends William Boyd to him, and _Giovanni’s Room_ , and Zayn recommends _I’m Thinking Of Ending Things_ even though he’s pretty sure it’s going to fuck Harry’s head right up. He tells Harry about a producer he’s been working with who always takes off his shoes in the studio even though he’s got a terrible fungal foot infection, and Harry tells him an absolutely disgusting story he got told by someone in an old rock band Zayn’s never heard of, who had a roadie who took his shoes off so infrequently on tour that he got trenchfoot and had to have three toes amputated. Zayn tells him a story about a friend of his sister’s who spent his whole student loan on a set of decks so he didn’t have anything left for food and ate nothing for a term but own-brand cornflakes and instant noodles. “I offered to give him a hundred quid,” Zayn says, “but Safaa was like, no, I want to see whether or not he’s going to die.”

“Did he?” Harry asks interestedly.

“No, but apparently he almost got scurvy.”

Harry laughs; Zayn likes the way he does it with his whole body, his shoulders shaking, his head tilted back. “Scurvy!”

“Scurvy,” Zayn confirms. He tells Harry then about when he was little and couldn’t eat fruit because it sent him absolutely nuts and hyperactive, and Harry tells him about when he was four and went to a birthday party and ate an entire jelly and threw up bright blue on a bouncy castle. Zayn tells him about a show during his first tour where he had to go offstage to be sick because he’d eaten two Big Macs and had a large chocolate milkshake beforehand, and Harry says, “Bet the audience was like ‘oh, Zayn’s doing a Zayn’.” His eyes are half twinkling and half squinty, like he’s worried they might not be at the point where they can make fun of each other, but Zayn doesn’t find himself irritated or offended. Instead he says, “You can fuck right off, Styles,” which Harry looks thrilled by.

They talk all through their main courses and the waiter comes to take their plates. “Would you like to look at the dessert menu?” he asks, and Harry looks at Zayn and shrugs and says, “We have the rest of that pie at home.” Zayn looks up at the waiter and says, “We’re all right, thanks, mate,” and when the bill comes he insists on paying. Harry lets him, and flushes slightly while he’s doing it.

They hold hands again on the way back to Harry’s house. It’s drizzling now and Zayn can see his breath streaming in front of him like smoke. Harry’s black and gold jacket definitely isn’t warm enough for this time of year but at least he looks incredibly good in it. When they get inside Harry warms up some pie and carefully carves out perfect spheres of vanilla ice cream to go with it. The pastry is flaky and buttery and the apples taste of cinnamon: the whole thing is full of warmth, just like Harry, just like this whole evening. They sit on the sofa and talk some more: Harry shows him that he’s got all of Zayn’s albums on his phone and explains, eyes cloudier, “But sometimes it hurts a bit when I actually listen to them, so I don’t all that often.”

Zayn gets it. He understands. He reaches over to put a hand behind Harry’s neck and kisses him, the apple pie sweetness on his lips, thumb massaging over the tendons under Harry’s skin. “I couldn’t listen to the last One Direction album.” He tried, sort of, but he kept thinking savage and cruel things. It was though he was striking impotently out at them to himself, which was redundant and stupid, as though he was poisoning himself by accident.

“I don’t mind. I didn’t listen to it much either.” Harry laughs a bit, breath warm on Zayn’s lips, and presses the tips of their noses together for a second before kissing him again. It’s as though they both know that they’ve got time now: it goes slower and sweeter, and Zayn knows that they can do this again so he doesn’t feel obligated to rush through it. They’ve got plenty of time to do everything that they want together, because they’re actually giving it a go this time. They’re being adults about it. They’re seeing if there’s any love there that can be saved or made. 

They pull apart again, their legs still tangled. Zayn plays with the soft hair on the nape of Harry’s neck: he likes the feeling of the silky strands between his fingers. One of Harry’s hands is resting warm and solid on his chest and the weight of it is very reassuring. God, he wants to be with someone again: his heart aches for it. To hold and to be held instead of spending endless nights by himself or with people who he doesn’t truly care about. What if Harry fell in love with him? Could they make that happen? 

Harry makes a sudden noise and detangles himself and says, “Wait here. One sec. I want to show you something.” He hares out of the room, and there’s a rummaging noise from next door. While he’s gone, Zayn looks down at his phone, checks his messages – there isn’t anything, no surprise – and then there are footsteps and Harry says, “Hey.”

Zayn looks up and Harry’s there with his phone out. There’s a click, which means that Harry’s taken a picture. “Jesus,” Zayn says. “What was that for?”

Harry shrugs. “A memory. I’ll text it to you.”

“Please don’t,” Zayn says, but his phone pings immediately which means Harry’s done it anyway. In his other hand, Harry is holding a book. It’s not the most impressive-looking book: it looks old and there’s a plastic jacket on it but Harry’s holding it with reverence. “I saw it online a while ago and I had to buy it,” he mutters, folding himself onto the couch next to Zayn again. “Look, it’s signed.”

“What is it?” Zayn mutters, leaning closer, and then he blinks up at Harry. “Pablo Neruda?”

“I think he’s one of the greatest love poets of all time. Have you read his stuff?”

“A little.” Not much. 

Harry smooths a hand over the cover of the book. “This is called _Twenty Love Poems And A Song Of Despair_.”

“Sounds cheerful,” Zayn says. “Can I look?”

Harry nods, and Zayn takes the book out of his hands, more careful than he’s ever been before in his life. He loves the smell of old books; he wants to press his head down and inhale the paper but he’s aware that would be pretty weird. He has some signed books too and first editions – he has some graphic novels and a couple of Stephen Kings and all the Harry Potter first editions signed in both UK and US format, which cost him a small fortune, but this one seems different. He turns the pages carefully. The poems are in Spanish, translated into English on the pages alongside them. He doesn’t know much Spanish – the only other language he can really speak is Urdu and sometimes he’s afraid that he’ll forget even that. He did French at school but he doesn’t remember any of it. His class always went mental during French classes and they had a student teacher who didn’t speak any English and kept crying, so nobody learned very much. Some of the Spanish words are familiar, but most aren’t. He looks at the translations instead. Harry moves in closer, one hand on Zayn’s back, his chin resting on his shoulder. For a moment Zayn’s focus leaves the book and all he can feel is the heat of Harry’s body so close to his, the slippery silk of his shirt, the regular warmth of his breath, his scent and his presence. How is he here right now? How have they got to this point together?

“Some of them made me think of you,” Harry murmurs. “I got this book so long ago. 2014, 2015 maybe. After you left – I’d brought it on tour, I just had a little paperback edition then, I shoved it into the corner of my suitcase – after you left, I remember finding it and reading it. I was alone in a hotel room in – God, I don’t know, Singapore, the Philippines, somewhere. I read these poems and I thought about you and I felt like I was going to die with how sad and angry I was.”

Zayn’s stomach lurches with want and tenderness and guilt. “I’m so sorry you felt that way.”

“You felt awful too. And it’s all right, because you’re here now.” 

“I am,” Zayn says. He puts the book down gently and turns to face Harry, touching the underside of his chin so that they can kiss again, slower and more delicate. He’s going back to New York in two days but he’s here now and if they’re putting a label on whatever this is, if they’re dating, if tonight went okay – and he thinks it did – then maybe he can come back. Maybe Harry can visit. He thinks of Harry in his apartment, touching the keys of his piano, looking up at the high ceilings with big eyes, standing on the roof terrace and looking out across the city. Sitting on Zayn’s sofa, with Dobby curled in the crook of his legs. It could be a life. It could be their life. 

Harry’s smiling, half dazed, when the kiss breaks. “Listen, I don’t usually do this on the first date…”

Zayn finds himself snorting with laughter, ugly and sincere. “Oh, don’t you?” he says, stealing another kiss.

“Mmm – no. Of course not!” Harry laughs against his mouth and bites his lip gently, before shuffling away. “Come on, Malik.”

Of course Zayn follows him. He would follow him anywhere, right now. He follows him up the stairs and into his room. It feels almost overwhelming, this whole thing. It’s a lot, that’s all. This house – he could end up spending a lot of time here. They might live together one day if it works out. They’d have to introduce Dobby to Evie and Maisie, and Dobby doesn’t really like other cats, or other people – or anything, really, if Zayn is honest with himself. They’d have to tell people too – their friends and family, and Zayn’s immediate family kind of knows but the concept of coming out to all of them is overwhelming. He doesn’t want to give anyone any more opportunities to talk shit about him. They’d have to tell Liam and Louis and Niall that they were finally making their weird fucked up sort-of relationship into something real, and they’d have to see the uncertainty and lack of belief in their eyes. Would Harry be worth it? Is he someone that Zayn could spend his life with? Because he’s thirty-two and he wants more, he wants to be married, he wants kids, and relationships now need to be serious, because he doesn’t know if he can put himself back together after having his heart broken yet again. And he knows that breaking hearts is something that Harry is gently and exquisitely incredible at.

But right now it feels worth it. The warmth of the expression on Harry’s face: Zayn believes it. He believes him. He believes that Harry thinks he wants a relationship with him. It makes him melt. Harry perches on the edge of his bed and gestures Zayn over; he goes, and stands between Harry’s legs, and Harry looks up at him and Zayn bends his head so that he can kiss him. It isn’t particularly comfortable, his neck cricked, but it’ll do. They’ve always had some stupidly powerful connection whenever they’re together like this that enables him to block out the rest of the world. Harry darts his fingers underneath Zayn’s t-shirt, touches his stomach and his hips, and Zayn breaks the kiss for a second so that he can pull the shirt off over his head. His hair’s gone mad, he can feel it; he swipes it back and stretches just a little in a way that he knows is going to make his body look incredible. The corner of Harry’s mouth lifts and he quirks an eyebrow: he knows what Zayn’s doing, but Zayn can also tell that it’s working on him.

He pulls Harry’s shirt off over his head too. His shoulders gleam in the almost-there light, faint acne scars puckering the skin on his back. Zayn touches him as though his fingertips can heal them, and Harry’s jaw too, where he feels faint stubble under his hands. He strokes Harry’s hair back off his forehead and cradles his face gently. Harry’s got a lovely face; Zayn hopes that he knows how lovely it is. It isn’t just that he’s handsome, although obviously he is. But there’s something sweet and caring about his eyes, as though he’s smiled so often that as he’s aged his face has set into an expression of kindness. It’s a pretty rare attribute to have, and obviously Zayn likes it. Harry wraps his arms around Zayn’s hips and pulls him in to press kisses to his stomach and his chest. It half tickles but mostly it sends sensation shuddering through him, as though every touch of Harry’s mouth lights a match and shoots off sparks. It might be his imagination but he’s pretty sure that, like before, Harry stops for a second over the cover-up ink where Gigi’s eyes used to be, and Zayn tightens a hand in his hair, pulling gently. He knows he doesn’t need to apologise for having had a girlfriend and loved someone else, but he sort of wants to anyway. 

Harry exhales against his skin, shaky and hot, and kisses the indentation next to Zayn’s hipbone, his eyelashes prickling against Zayn’s skin. He can feel himself half curled over, as though he’s trying to get as close to Harry as possible without actively lying down on top of him. Harry looks up at him and presses his lips together in a half-smile before undoing his belt and then his fly, pulling Zayn’s jeans down so they’re mid-thigh, followed by his underwear. When Harry wraps his mouth around Zayn’s cock it’s with a noise that’s almost a sigh of appreciation, and Zayn lets himself get lost in the sensation of it: the heat, the tightness of his mouth. He looks down and sees the hollow of Harry’s cheeks as he sucks hard, the shadow of his lashes on his cheekbones, and he sighs out a “Fuck.” Dimples appear in Harry’s cheeks, like he’d smile if he could.

It’s so good. Harry is so fucking good at this. It’s a travesty that he can’t be lauded with praise by the whole world for it. If Zayn could somehow take a snapshot of the way this feels then he would. He tries to take it in: the eager muscles of Harry’s back, the rug on the floor underneath his bare toes, the pressure and the feel of it, like every part of his body and his mind is revolving around Harry and his mouth, the way he moves his tongue, how fucking deep he can take it – Zayn looks down and sees Harry take his whole cock into his mouth, the length just disappearing, the muscles of his throat working around him – and he wants to say, _Who taught you that, how did you learn, you weren’t like that with me to start with_. But that would be useless when he’s the one who gets to reap the benefits of it. Harry is controlled yet desperate, shifting on the bed, palming his own cock through his jeans like he’s trying to get himself together. “You really hard?” Zayn asks, his voice coming out cracked and full of want. “Is sucking my dick turning you on?”

Harry groans out an agreement around his dick, a rumble and a vibration that makes Zayn’s whole body clench. He holds it together, just about. “You’ve always loved this.” He tangles a hand in Harry’s hair and Harry glances up at him, his eyes dark and hazy. “I want you to do this for me every day, alright? I want— are you all right?”

Harry’s pulling back: his mouth is a thing of beauty, puffy and almost bruised, and he’s out of breath. “I’m fine,” he says. “Fuck my mouth.”

“What?” Zayn says, and quickly, Harry says: “Please.”

He’s careful to start with, shallow thrusts – although he trusts Harry, of course he does, he trusts him to tell him if it’s too much or if he’s changed his mind. He grips Harry’s hair and says “Just, like – tap my leg if it’s too much,” and Harry looks up at him with an arched eyebrow like he’s saying _Fuck the concept of ‘too much’_. He holds Harry’s head still, the strands of his hair silky and knotted around Zayn’s fingers, trying not to be too sharp or too deep or too fast. But Harry’s eyes are shut and he looks like he’s into it, properly into it, with that familiar furrow between his eyebrows. One of his hands shakes as he unzips his trousers and exhales hard as some of the pressure is relieved – Zayn wonders if he was so hard it hurt. If so, he has to admit that he’s into it. He likes turning Harry on that much. He can feel the shreds of himself drifting away as it becomes physical, animal – and then when he comes it’s almost too sudden, drawing back and filling Harry’s mouth, watching his throat work as he swallows. The slow lazy way that his eyes open as Zayn withdraws, the sweep of his eyelid, the pink of his mouth. He smiles and licks his lips like he loves the taste. Those eyes are shining, glittering in the half-light.

Zayn is out of breath, chest heaving. He falls to his knees in front of Harry and with shaking fingers undoes his trousers further, releases his cock – he’s barely managed to get his mouth around it before Harry rasps, “I’m really close,” and comes. He tastes sweet and salty and Zayn swallows, withdraws, rests his forehead on Harry’s knee so that he can catch his breath. He feels Harry’s hand on the back of his head as though he’s anointing him, somehow. Blessing him. 

He looks up and sees tears in Harry’s eyes. “You okay?” His voice doesn’t feel like it’s working properly.

“I’m brilliant.” Harry hauls him up and they collapse together onto the bed, Zayn on top of him. Harry kisses him and runs his hands up and down Zayn’s sides as though he’s counting his ribs. Zayn kicks off his jeans finally so he’s completely naked and rolls off Harry onto his back. Harry turns to him and threads a hand through his hair and presses his lips to Zayn’s again. He can taste come and beer and cinnamon as their tongues meet, lazier now, slower, more languorous. Harry finds his way out of his trousers and they tangle themselves together underneath the sheets. He could lie like this for hours. Days, even. He hasn’t always been big on kissing: it was kind of the prelude to the big event, the thing that had to be done so that the shag could progress, but with Harry it feels different. The way that they’re pressed chest to chest, as close as Zayn’s ever been with another human being. Outside it’s raining again: he can hear it, hammering on the roof and the windows. He feels cocooned, insulated inside with Harry, as though nothing else can ever get to them now.

*

The next morning he wakes first. It’s his last day in the UK before he goes back to New York, to write and to get on with his next album. At least now he’ll have some pretty excellent material to put on there. He looks at Harry’s peaceful sleeping face for a long moment and wonders what the future between them might hold. They’re dating, sort of – they’re going out, although they probably aren’t boyfriends yet. He doesn’t even know if he wants them to be boyfriends. _Harry Styles, my boyfriend_ , he mouths to himself. _My boyfriend, Harry. Oh yeah, that’s just my boyfriend, Sir Harold of Styles_. It feels odd. Even the concept of having a boyfriend is odd, let alone it being Harry. Harry, who is out of the closet; and it’s not as though Zayn has ever purposely constructed himself a closet to hide in, but there’s never been any need to tell anyone and so he hasn’t. His relationship default has been women, even though if he’s honest with himself, he’s always been split more fifty-fifty in his mind than that. But all of his experiences with men have always been clandestine and hush-hush, with groupies or other celebrities who wanted to keep it quiet, or friends of friends who knew that it wasn’t going to be any more than a hook-up. He has never dated a man, he has never been in love with a man—

He looks at Harry, at his relaxed face, his light sprinkling of stubble, his tattooed arm sprawled across the covers. _I could fall in love with someone like you._

Harry has had these other experiences, though. He has dated slightly older men who have lived openly gay lives for years. He has explored high camp, he has waved rainbow flags, he has had boyfriends, one of whom he even went to Iceland with. A holiday with a boyfriend is a pretty big deal. Sometimes Zayn wishes he’d never been famous: that he’d gone to university, fumbled around with a few other lads at nights out with the LGBT society, brought a nice boy home to meet his mum, had a helpless crush on a straight friend, used Grindr to hook up based purely on the strength of someone else’s dick pics. Worn glitter, danced to Kylie. It’s a stereotype but maybe it’s a stereotype because it works. Maybe you have to become the stereotype for a little while so you can take a step back into yourself once that self is more fully formed and you’ve added more of what you always dreamed you could be to it. Like the way that Harry went from a scruffy kid in beaten-up trainers to a velvet-clad rock star, and finally found his calmer and more peaceful and private self in between. 

The difference in their experiences makes him close to afraid. He doesn’t like to feel as though he’s being left behind or as if he’s on the back foot. He flips onto his other side so he can’t see Harry’s stupid face. That doesn’t really help because he can still hear him breathing, so he decides to lean into it, wriggling backwards instead so that his back is against Harry’s chest. The warmth and solidity of him is reassuring and so – if Zayn is honest – is the fact that his arse is pressing directly against Harry’s morning erection. He relaxes back against him and feels ready to go back to sleep, in this morning-scented nest of sheets in the grey-white light that only happens early on a London day. 

But Harry’s making vague waking-up noises behind him, shifting and flinging an arm around Zayn’s waist, pressing his nose into the back of Zayn’s neck, a knee between Zayn’s legs. His cock is pressing against the curve of Zayn’s arse and he grinds experimentally backwards into it. He’s half hard himself now and Harry groans softly, hand snaking down over Zayn’s stomach to his cock, fisting around it. “Morning, sunshine,” he murmurs into Zayn’s ear.

“Morning, babe,” Zayn says, his breath catching in his throat. This feels like heaven. Exactly a week ago, he was panicking in New York about not being able to get a flight, about being hated by an entire arena of people, about the boys not really wanting him to be onstage with them. And here he is with Harry Styles wrapped around him, his mouth smudging kisses all over Zayn’s neck; Zayn is probably one of the most envied people in the world right now, and he loves it. He feels Harry’s other hand tracing a line down his back, like maybe he’s following Zayn’s spine. He wants to curl into his touch, somehow; he wishes it was possible to be even closer, like maybe he could crawl inside Harry’s skin.

But there’s always the next best thing. Harry’s finger at the top of his arse, teasing at the top of his crack, and Zayn feels himself let out a breath, pressing his hips back towards Harry, whose finger travels lower, lower, tracing around Zayn’s hole, his other hand still wrapped around Zayn’s cock. He feels himself relax and wishes that Harry would push inside him: he wants that right now, he wants that stretch and that fullness, and as if he’s somehow heard him, Harry presses his fingertip inside him. He isn’t slicked up so it isn’t completely comfortable, but it does send sweet heat through his nerve endings, and he tilts his head back, sucking in a deep breath. There’s a momentary absence and a shift and then there’s Harry’s fingers pressing against his mouth. He opens his lips and sucks the two fingers hard and wet before Harry withdraws them with a slick pop. A pause and then Zayn feels those fingers pressing inside him. Every time it’s like a homecoming: there’s something intrinsic that his body loves about this, something deep and animalistic about the sensation of this intimacy and closeness. Harry’s mouth is on the back of his neck, soft and featherlike and then a brief delicious scratch of teeth. Zayn’s breath catches in his throat and Harry hums out a laugh. “Like that?”

“Fuck, yes,” Zayn says, steadying his voice deliberately, not willing to give up too much, not willing to be too vulnerable just yet. 

The fingers inside him feel so good. The stretch is so sweet, and the slowness so gorgeous: every movement shivers waves through his body and it’s so easy to get lost in it. He arches his back and presses further onto Harry’s fingers and then there’s a further stretch as Harry pushes another finger inside him. “Want me to fuck you?” he murmurs and Zayn nods: yes, yes, yes. 

A moment of frustrating absence that makes him want to yell; he glances over his shoulder and Harry’s grabbing the lube off his bedside table before starting to rummage around for a condom in the drawer. “It’s fine,” Zayn says, “just—”

“Yeah?” Harry sounds like he’s out of breath.

“Yeah, don’t worry, I get tested all the time, I just want you to do it.” He doesn’t care about condoms: he trusts Harry, and maybe that’s stupid, but he can’t bring himself to care right now. And beside that, skin on skin has always felt best for him – for everyone, probably. He’s going back to New York tomorrow. He doesn’t know when this is going to happen again. He knows he’s safe for Harry to fuck without a condom and even though he doesn’t totally trust Harry with his heart, he trusts him with his health. So for today, this is what he wants.

Harry settles down behind him again and Zayn shifts himself around, draws his leg up to his chest. There’s the blunt tip of Harry’s cock pressing against him then and he hears himself sigh with satisfaction at how good he already knows it’s going to be. Harry moves slowly, perfectly slowly, so that the sensation creeps over Zayn’s whole body in a way that feels delicate and profound, not slammed into him, more as though he’s a bud that’s opening up to the sun. Harry kisses the side of his neck, his hair falling over his eyes, its ends tickling Zayn’s skin, and Zayn finds himself stretching a hand up so that he can hold Harry’s head right there and tilt his neck so that they can kiss, deep and slow, until finally Harry is completely inside him. It feels so fucking good, the stretch and the ache and the bliss of it, the completeness, the fullness, the wholeness. “Jesus,” he grits out, and Harry half-laughs against his mouth before starting to fuck him in earnest, still slow, still deliberate. He wraps a hand around Zayn’s calf, holding his leg up at the perfect angle so that he can get deeper: there’s the brush of electricity of him inside against his prostate that makes Zayn’s vision almost white out as he hears himself swear. Harry was the first person who ever touched him there, during a bit of experimentation in a hotel room, fingers inside him, saying “I read about this thing, why it feels so good when you do it to me,” as Zayn pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes, unable to look at Harry there with the wrinkled focus and concentration on his face, the openness of himself, the fact he was hard because there was a boy pressing his fingers inside him. When Harry had found that spot Zayn had come immediately, arching his whole body with shock as though he’d been electrocuted. 

It’s similar right now, although thankfully these days he comes with a little more warning. Back in the day they learned each other’s bodies by heart, and they’ve spent a significant portion of the last week reminding themselves of what they used to do so well together. Zayn can feel Harry’s eyes on him as he wanks himself off in time with Harry’s movements. He’s always liked putting on a bit of a show and he loves the way that Harry speeds up, like there’s a fraction of control he’s close to losing. Zayn likes having that effect on him. 

He comes first in the end, hard into his hand, and then a second later Harry’s following him, almost panting as he pumps into him and then stills. Zayn can feel warmth spreading inside him. He’s always loved that. Harry pulls out, slow and careful, and together they slump back onto the pillows. Zayn smiles at the ceiling, feeling full and empty at the same time, aching in the best possible way. His hand is sticky and he lifts it, wondering if there’s anything convenient to wipe it on that won’t mess up Harry’s sheets that probably cost four hundred pounds, but instead Harry takes it and licks his palm clean.

“You’re disgusting,” Zayn says, with a little wonder in his voice.

“You taste really good,” Harry explains, stretching out, his voice almost a yawn. “Should we go back to sleep?”

Zayn is always okay with going back to sleep. He reaches for his phone first and checks his messages: the first one makes his heart sink with nerves and he elbows Harry gently before saying, “Louis texted me. He wants to know if I’d like to come round for Sunday lunch.”

Harry cracks an eye open. “Do you want to?”

“I don’t know.” Zayn frowns at his phone. As it happens, the concept of it isn’t entirely bad. He got along well with Louis last weekend, and Eleanor seemed totally sincere when she told him that he should come over soon. He likes the idea of a home-cooked Sunday roast, and sitting around a table with people who feel like family. He and Harry can spend the rest of the day together if they want to – there’s plenty of time, and they’d probably only be sitting in the pub next door having a carvery anyway. He looks at Harry, trying to figure out what he’s thinking. “I might go,” he says.

“That’s a good idea,” Harry says peacefully. He squirms away and grabs his own phone from the other bedside table; there’s something odd in his voice when he says, “I’ve been invited too.”

“Really?” Zayn stares at him. “Do you think it’s a group thing?”

“I don’t know.” Harry frowns at his phone. “You ask.”

“No, _you_ ask,” Zayn says.

“Absolutely the fuck not,” Harry says firmly. “He likes you more.”

“He doesn’t,” Zayn says, feeling secretly pleased. He taps out _Yeah sure! What time? Who else coming?_ and hits send.

Harry looks up from his phone and reports, “Niall just texted me. He’s going too.”

“Really?” Worry is starting to jangle around inside Zayn’s guts. “What do you think’s going to happen?”

“Dunno,” Harry says, sighing a bit; then he catches Zayn’s eye and although he tries to hide it, it’s clear that Harry sees some of his anxiety there. He cuddles closer and says, “I wouldn’t worry about it, though. Maybe it’s just to say thank you for the show last weekend, or to just – you know. Get us all together so it isn’t as long until we’re all in the same room again.”

Zayn feels fractionally calmer at that. “All right. That sounds okay.”

“Yeah. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” Harry wriggles beside him and says, “Oh my God, I need a shower.”

Zayn laughs and nudges him. “Off you go.”

With a groan, Harry peels himself out of bed and staggers towards the bathroom. Zayn can’t help but watch him go, appreciating the long lines of his body, his shoulder blades, the curves of his calves, the dimples on the base of his spine, his head of wild hair. He allows himself to feel that fizz of excitement again at the prospect of them being together. That gorgeous man right there, that could be his boyfriend if he wants him to be, if it works out. They could be a pair. A couple. He could find love again. Harry could be his forever.

Louis texts back finally: _All the lads! Niall’s gf too. And el obviously._

Zayn feels more cheerful at the prospect of meeting the girl that Niall’s marrying. He doesn’t believe that Niall would marry someone who wasn’t incredible, so clearly it’s going to be excellent. He goes to take a careful shower in Harry’s other bathroom so he doesn’t end up accidentally farting come onto Louis’s living room carpet, and meets Harry downstairs in the kitchen. They don’t do any of the real breakfast nonsense today: Harry pulls a box of Coco Pops firmly out of the cupboard and they demolish two bowls each in front of a cooking TV show, which Harry becomes quickly irate with because apparently they’re making meringues in a way which is terrible and ill-advised.

Harry drives them over to Louis’s house. His car runs smoothly and he’s a good driver, methodical and careful. Sometimes Harry talks too slowly and thoughtfully, but it transfers well to the road. Louis might be more fun to have a conversation with every now and then, but he’s pretty erratic and death-defying when he drives, and he’s exhausting after a while too. Harry makes Zayn feel peaceful, which is an underrated quality in a sort-of boyfriend.

When they’re about five minutes away, Harry turns down the music – which is good, because he’s insisting on listening to George Ezra and Zayn finds it unbearable – and says, “So do they know about, you know…” and waves a hand between them.

“I don’t know,” Zayn says. “They don’t know about, um… You know. I think they know that a few years ago we, erm…”

“Made a lot of emotionally traumatic life decisions involving giving each other blowjobs,” Harry puts in.

Zayn finds himself laughing. “Yeah. I mean not the specifics. And they know we hooked up this week. But they don’t know about…”

“That we might make it a bit more serious,” Harry says. 

When Zayn glances sideways at him, Harry’s gone a bit pink. He extends a finger and gently pokes one of his dimples. “Yeah. Exactly. Do you want them to know?”

Harry clears his throat. “Do you?”

Zayn has no idea. He squints out of the window, at green rain-drenched front gardens and skeletal trees. They’re not in central London any more, Toto. “I think it might be a bit too early for it,” he says.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “I mean – you’re probably right.”

Zayn clears his throat and nods. He thinks he’s right anyway: he doesn’t want to make a big thing out of the fact that they’re sort of doing it, and then have to make an even bigger thing about it if it goes pear-shaped and they mess it all up. Everything is so new and so tentative: they barely know these versions of each other, and they’ve spent ten years not talking. It seems ridiculous to start parading each other around. Niall kept his fiancée hidden for ages, and this is arguably something stranger and more likely to put a spanner in the works. “Yeah. I don’t want to have to be like, _By the way, we broke up_ , in two months.”

“You think we’re going to break up in two months?” Harry’s voice sounds a little jagged.

“We don’t even have anything to break up from yet,” Zayn says, terser than he’d realised he’d sound before the words came out.

Harry laughs, but only a little. Zayn’s starting to recognise the area they’re in: near his old house again, but a few streets down, which means that they’re almost at Louis’s place. He feels that familiar dull clang of worry and nerves again, butterflies in his stomach. “And what if they want to get back together?” he says.

“What?” Harry turns into Louis’s road.

“What. If. They. Want. The Band. To Get. Back Together. Again,” Zayn enunciates. “What if that’s why Louis wants us to go over? What if they’ve got some plan? What if…”

“You’re starting to sound slightly mental,” Harry says. He pulls over into a space and unclicks his seatbelt so he can turn to face Zayn. “Don’t worry about it. We talked about this a few days ago, didn’t we?”

“And you don’t want to do it?” Zayn has to check. He knows deep in his gut that he doesn’t want to reform the band, or to be guilted into doing things that he doesn’t feel like doing purely so that these new fragile bonds with the other boys survive. If there are more charity gigs that he can be part of, that’s fine, that much is okay. But a tour, new music, recording together, anything that actively takes away from the rest of his work – he doesn’t want to commit to that. He’s thankful that he knows that Niall isn’t willing to do it either – and Harry, of course. He looks hard into Harry’s eyes. “You don’t?” he repeats.

“No,” Harry says, “I don’t. I’m a bit too busy. I’ve got my own stuff going on. We all do.”

It’s like water being poured on flames. The pressure in Zayn’s chest lifts and he smiles before leaning over for a quick kiss. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Harry frowns at him, looking worried.

“Yeah. Okay. We’re okay. You’ve got my back, yeah?”

“I’ve always got your back.” Harry kisses him again before starting the car. Louis’s house is down at the other end of the street, and Harry parks neatly in a corner of his driveway. Zayn vividly recollects running down there from his own house to hang out all the fucking time when they were home from tour: to smoke weed in the den, to watch _Deal Or No Deal_ and complain about Noel Edmonds’s beard, to bake cakes from supermarket-bought kits – they’d sit on the kitchen floor in front of the oven, stoned as fuck, watching them rise and oohing and aahing to each other. He also went there to escape when his family came to stay and his house felt too noisy and crowded; or, more simply, to spend time with one of his best friends. 

Louis and Eleanor still have Bruce, although he looks older now, and he doesn’t jump up at Zayn like he used to. He barks and then he sneezes, and beside him Louis’s other dog sneezes too. “They’re getting old,” Louis says as an explanation, and leans over them to hug Zayn and then, with a fractional pause, Harry. “I didn’t know you lads were coming together.”

“We’re making a habit of it at the moment,” Harry says, smooth as fuck, and Louis laughs and makes a grossed out face at the same time. Zayn laughs too but he’s instantly jarred by it. It seems like too much to say about whatever relationship they’ve got, and he’d probably feel more comfortable if just for today they reverted to the old days of pretending nothing was going on between them even though everyone else absolutely knew. It probably wasn’t very emotionally healthy, but it made him feel less awkward than he does right now.

The dogs patter after them into Louis’s living room. Liam’s there and so are Niall and Abby, who’s both prettier and older in person than she was in the photos, tiny and blonde and tanned. She jumps to her feet and looks hard at Niall until he introduces everyone, and then she hugs Harry and then Zayn, looking slightly nervous. In the corner, Bear and Freddie are building something out of Lego that looks a bit like a tower but mostly like a lump of bricks. “Hey Harry, hey Zayn,” Freddie says cheerfully, glancing over at them. He has an American accent, which is bizarre. Beside him, Bear waves, all big dark eyes and a tentative smile. 

“Liam and Louis version two,” Harry says under his breath as they sit down together on one of Louis’s sofas, and Zayn hums out a laugh. It’s true, though: Bear is more cautious, and Freddie is a ball of energy, and they both look like their fathers in ways that are both bizarre and strangely sweet. 

El pops in from the kitchen and says that the food’s under control and would they like a drink, and Zayn takes the opportunity to escape with her so that he can pour glasses of wine and so that he can take a breath. The kitchen smells like roasting chicken and rosemary, and Eleanor leans against the counter and smiles at him. “Does today feel like a lot, then?”

“So much. I might die,” Zayn says, and shakes his head.

She smiles sympathetically at him. “Louis is so glad you’re here.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She’s so warm. He always liked her so much, from the moment that she and Louis got together. She was irreverent and funny and didn’t give a shit, and she was good for Louis in a way that Zayn had never envisaged anyone being. She made him softer and gentler and kept his ego in check while simultaneously bolstering him if he didn’t feel great. When they broke up, and after Zayn left the band, he talked to her every now and then, compared notes on whether or not they felt shit that day, what it felt like to be cut out by Louis Tomlinson, how absolutely awful and insane it was that Briana was pregnant. And then Freddie was born and they agreed that maybe it wasn’t so awful after all because he was a beautiful, incredible baby and babies always felt like miracles. And then she got back together with Louis and after that Zayn never spoke to her again, but he doesn’t blame her for it. Letting friendships fall into quiet, respectful silence is probably the best way of ending them.

“I’m glad to be here too,” Zayn says. “It’s good you caught me today. I’m going home tomorrow.”

Eleanor shakes her head. “It’s still weird that ‘home’ for you is America and not just up the road. When me and Lou got back together and I moved back in here, it was so quiet and rubbish without you and Perrie five minutes away.”

As ever, Perrie’s name throws up a whole bundle of uncomfortable, unpleasant emotions. Zayn shrugs a shoulder, not particularly trusting himself to speak, and Eleanor says, “Sorry, that was tactless.”

“It’s all right,” Zayn says. “They were good times.”

She smiles at him, sunny again. “They were.”

Footsteps outside, and Louis sticks his head into the kitchen. “Do you want a hand, love?” he asks Eleanor, and adds, “No one has ever taken as long in the history of the universe to pour some drinks as you, Malik.”

“We were just having a catch-up,” Eleanor says. “It’s nice to have a good conversationalist around for once.”

“I am _wounded_ ,” Louis says, before disappearing off to the living room again. “Wounded!” Zayn hears him say again, from somewhere in the hallway.

Zayn and Eleanor share a smile before he pours wine into glasses and takes a tray through to the living room. It rattles dangerously before he sets it down on the coffee table, because he will never end up being as coordinated as he’d like to be. Harry is busy ingratiating himself to Abby and Zayn isn’t sure where to sit if not beside him, so he sinks awkwardly onto the carpet beside Bear and Freddie and their table full of Lego instead. “What are you making?” he asks.

They’re making a space ship, obviously, even if it doesn’t look much like it. Freddie explains it to him: the escape chamber, the control room, the holding cell for any foreign lifeforms the pilots might find. It seems like they’ve got everything covered, but Zayn asks, “Where are the astronauts going to sleep?” anyway.

“They don’t need to _sleep_ ,” Freddie says, with deep disdain. “They’re _superheroes._ ”

“Excellent,” Zayn says, feeling himself relax even though it turns out he’s got more in common with the children than the adults. “Sleeping is for idiots and wimps.” Bear starts killing himself with laughter, which is gratifying. 

Dinner is a little later than anticipated, because Eleanor has a disaster with the Yorkshire puddings. It’s getting progressively warmer in Louis’s living room and although it isn’t too bad, Zayn’s starting to feel uncomfortable and too hot. He doesn’t seem to be able to think of anything to say to anyone: he doesn’t want to reach out and touch Harry or talk to him in case there’s intimacy there that other people pick up on and decide they want to have dreadful conversations about. He doesn’t really know enough about what Liam and Louis are up to these days to know what to say to them, and anyway, every time he thinks of something to say it’s as though Harry swoops in there two seconds ahead of him, monopolising the conversation and being chatty and charming in a way that Zayn finds both impossible and exhausting.

He sneaks outside instead, wishing that he still smoked. It might have been extraordinarily damaging to his lungs, but at least it gave him an excuse to loiter outside instead of pretending to be sociable. As it turns out, Abby’s out there, looking tense and looking at her phone. “Everything all right?” Zayn asks tentatively. 

“Oh yeah, fine – fine, I was just…” She looks down at her phone and sighs, her shoulders slumping. “Actually, I was just pretending to text my sister because I got a bit overwhelmed in there. Don’t get me wrong, you lot are all lovely – but it’s a lot.”

Zayn understands that. He nods carefully. “Did you like the band when you were younger?” he asks.

She wrinkles her nose. “I didn’t dislike you, but I was a little old for the whole thing. I liked your first album though. And Harry’s.”

“And Niall’s?” Zayn asks.

She flushes. “Of course,” she says, too quickly.

He finds himself snorting out a laugh. “How did you two meet?”

“Same as most couples,” she says, shrugging a shoulder. “Through friends, at a party. We were publishing a book by one of his friends about mental health and he came to the launch. I was – at the start I was…” She takes a breath. “It’s a lot to take on, that’s all.”

He nods, feeling a little ashamed, which is stupid really: but he knows it’s true, he knows that everyone any of them has been linked to has had to endure a huge amount of abuse and scrutiny from their fans. Perrie had it terribly, Gigi had it slightly less so; he honestly has no idea how Eleanor and Louis managed to make it through to be in the position that they are today. Loving a member of One Direction means giving up a degree of your privacy, it means that fans search through every detail of your life and mercilessly penalise you for everything that they find that they dislike. It means that you’re unable to make any mistakes or missteps, it means that you’ll be called a stupid whore, it means that your relationship will be called fake, it means that your employer will be harassed, your siblings, your mother. He smiles at Abby, smiles as much as he can manage, anyway, and says, “Niall will be worth it.”

“I know.” She hides her smile behind her hand as she looks at the ground before looking back at him. “He’s pretty incredible.”

From behind them there’s a banging on the kitchen window and he turns to see Eleanor mouthing _IT’S READY_ and holding up a roasting tin precariously. “I think El’s been on the wines,” he says. “Come on.”

There are two big roast chickens with crackling golden skin, and roast potatoes with garlic and rosemary, and fluffy Yorkshire puddings drenched in gravy, and a plate of sausages wrapped in bacon, and serving dishes of vegetables shining with butter. “It definitely isn’t always like this at our house,” Louis says as he starts carving one of the chickens. “Last night we had oven pizza.”

“Can’t go wrong with that,” Liam says, putting a pile of green beans onto Bear’s plate and quelling his protests with a firm glance. “Listen, lads, we wanted to—”

“Shall we eat first?” Louis says. There’s a sort of sharp breeziness in his voice that raises the hackles on the back of Zayn’s neck. He looks nervously across at Harry, who quirks an eyebrow questioningly because apparently he didn’t notice anything amiss at all. It’s easy to stop himself worrying as he eats: he’s sitting next to Eleanor, who tells him all about how work has been going lately. She’s a freelance fashion stylist these days. Sometimes she works on photoshoots and the rest of the time she works with private clients, showing them around Harvey Nicks and Harrods and Selfridges, collecting armfuls of clothes and working out how to politely tell them that orange makes them look sallow. It’s Christmas coming up soon and he suggests that maybe he could hire her to work with his mum and sisters for a big old shopping spree.

Her eyes widen at the prospect. “That would be incredible. I’ve missed your family. And you, of course.” She reaches out to touch his hand.

On his other side, Niall is checking the golf results on his phone under the table. Zayn nudges him and he almost chokes on a mouth of roast potato. “Fucking hell,” he says, when he’s managed to stop coughing and Zayn’s almost finished laughing at him, and Bear and Freddie’s faces light up simultaneously at how wonderful it is to see an adult swearing in front of them. Freddie tells them all that he’s back off to LA tomorrow and that he’s looking forward to seeing his mom, and Louis tells everyone proudly that Freddie’s the star of the soccer team at his school. Then Freddie announces that he supports LA Galaxy and Louis looks extremely disheartened. Beside him, Bear says, “I support West Brom!” and Liam says, misty-eyed, “That’s my boy.”

It’s good to sit opposite Harry. In meetings, Zayn always liked to catch his eye every now and then. A lot of the time he could tell that Harry felt the same way as him, whether it was about how manic their schedule was or how much their tour promoter was spitting as he spoke. He’d always wait for Harry to say something or to chip in somewhere – to add that maybe there were too many dates too close together, or that they needed time to get home to see their families somewhere in there, and of course he never did, just sighed and nodded and agreed, tight-lipped, all in the name of stupid, boring professionalism. Right now, Harry is doing the right thing. He’s interjecting a wry joke every now and then, although not many people seem to find him funny except Zayn. He’s smiling across at him too, reaching across beneath the table to kick Zayn’s foot gently, like they’re idiot teenagers playing footsie. When Louis speaks across Harry, Zayn says “Oi, shut up, Styles was in the middle of saying something,” and Harry looks momentously gratified as he finishes his sentence. They’re going to have to start to work more as a team, and this is where it begins.

Dinner finishes. They all sit back in their chairs, stuffed and comfortable, and Freddie says, “Can we go play with our Legos?” immediately.

“Off you go,” Louis says, and the boys scramble down from their chairs and scuttle off out of the room. Then there’s a contented pause that Zayn lets himself lean into, enjoying the feeling of being sated and surrounded by friends. Then Louis ruins it by saying, “There’s actually something that I wanted to talk to you lads about.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Zayn sees Niall stiffen, before putting his napkin down on his plate. “Oh yeah? What was it?” Niall sounds too casual, like he’s biding his time and preparing himself for an argument. It feels stifling, the way it always did before, when they were all in the band and they had to have shitty group discussions that always ended up with a decision that Zayn hated. He sends a desperate look across at Harry, who manages to communicate _I don’t know_ pretty effectively with just his eyes.

“The show last weekend went so bloody well,” Louis says. Eleanor’s nodding, and Harry is as well, which is fair. It did go well. They sounded good and the fans were happy. So were they, as it happens. Zayn is still happy about it. It was a success. They raised money for Jay’s charity, and the fans got to see the five of them together onstage again. Zayn himself got to have closure. But the look on Louis’s face is making Zayn’s stomach fold over inside itself with foreboding. Slowly, Louis continues, “And me and Liam were talking and we were saying: wouldn’t it be brilliant to do some more stuff for old time’s sake? Not just a whole load of nostalgia – we’ve all developed as singers, as songwriters—”

Zayn wants to snap something about how the fuck they would know what sort of a songwriter he was in the band, when they never bothered to listen to any of his efforts, but he manages to hold his tongue.

Liam takes over, all big earnest dark eyes. “We were thinking that perhaps it’s time. We can control it all ourselves now – we can get back together on our own terms. We’ve demonstrated that we all get on well now…”

Zayn lets out a heavy breath, not quite on purpose. Too sharply, Louis says, “What’s the issue?”

He hates the feeling of everyone’s eyes being on him but he hates the idea of staying silent more, which he supposes is at least evidence that he’s grown up a little. He says, “There’s no issue. But I don’t think that twenty minutes onstage and one roast dinner proves that we all get on fine and there aren’t any problems any more.”

“But it has been nice today,” Harry puts in.

Irritation rises up inside Zayn’s throat. He feels as though Harry’s trying to make him look bad and argumentative, as though Zayn was trying to insult today and the efforts that Eleanor and Louis have gone to. “I didn’t say it hasn’t been nice,” he snaps. “Please repeat for me when I said that it hasn’t been nice.”

Harry looks stung. Zayn feels guilty, and then infuriated that he feels guilty. Beside him, Niall says tentatively, “Carry on, Liam.”

“We just thought,” Liam says, more uncertain now, “that perhaps we could all get in the studio for a bit and see what happens. I’m not saying that we should sign another record deal or book shows or anything…”

Out of the corner of his eye, Zayn can see Niall looking hard at the tablecloth, biting his lip. He thinks back to the other night, when Niall told him that he didn’t want the band to get back together. But this might be something that he likes the idea of, enough of a baby-step to tempt him into it. Across the table Harry’s face is blank and inscrutable now, but Zayn trusts him, he thinks. Zayn trusts him enough for him to repeat what he said in the car about being too busy with his own stuff to get back together with the band. He trusts him to be on Zayn’s side about this. Him and Harry against Liam and Louis, and Niall wavering in the middle, his love of the band warring with his love of peace. 

“So why do you want to do it?” Niall says abruptly. “Talk me through your reasoning.”

“Because the band was wicked,” Louis says impatiently. “Because sometimes working on your own is shit. Because we can make a _lot_ of money this way.”

Zayn feels as though they’ve suddenly dug through to the heart of the issue. Money? That makes sense. Liam and Louis are the only people sitting around this table who have to make colossal child support payments, and although they’ve done this and that over time, songwriting, a single here and there, presenting, Louis’s stint on the X Factor, Liam in the West End, Zayn is also extremely aware that their solo careers haven’t quite reached the heights of Harry and Niall’s. He isn’t sure about his own career, but he does know that what he’s currently doing makes him feel comfortable and that he isn’t yearning for any more. He doesn’t know if that’s the case for Liam and Louis. 

Niall does that awkward laugh that Zayn hasn’t heard in years. “Lads, do we really want to be talking about money right now? Surely that’s not why we’re here today.”

“Isn’t it?” Zayn’s voice sounds too harsh and cutting even to himself. “I’m pretty sure that’s exactly why we’ve been invited here today.”

“Zayn,” Harry says across the table, almost pleading, and Zayn snaps, “ _Harry_ ,” at him. Anger flares in Harry’s eyes and he sits back in his chair, an arm folded across his chest as though he’s holding himself back from something. 

“Look,” Louis says, “it could be brilliant, all right? I know it wasn’t all easy but there were some incredible times.”

Niall’s shaking his head. “Look, I know there was a lot of fun, and I don’t think that anyone around this table loved the band more than me, I think we’re all agreed on that. But it’s important to make sure that we don’t remember it as better than it actually was. We were so tired all the time – and Liam, you were drinking too much, and…” He looks at Zayn as though he’s asking for permission to say something. Zayn nods slightly. “And we all know that it made Zayn ill. With all due respect to everyone, I don’t think he would have left unless it had become unbearable.”

Louis lets out a shocked noise. “Niall, you’ve spent the last ten years barely fucking acknowledging his name and now—”

“Because we talked,” Niall says. “And we’ve cleared the air, and—”

“Maybe we should all calm down,” Harry says infuriatingly.

“Oh, will you shut the fuck up,” Louis snaps. There’s a moment of silence and then he says sullenly, “Sorry.”

Harry says, “It’s fine.” From the look on his face, it isn’t particularly fine at all.

On Zayn’s other side, Eleanor clears her throat. “I’m just going to see if the boys are all right,” she says, getting up, and Abby follows her out of the room quickly, looking like she’s grateful for an excuse to leave. 

The door shuts behind them and then it’s the five of them alone together, a restless silence rustling between them. Zayn tries to meet Harry’s eyes but Harry won’t look back at him, and Liam looks unhappy and drawn, as though he wishes they’d never had the conversation to begin with. Zayn agrees fervently with that. Finally Niall hisses, “What the fuck is wrong with you all? I bring my fiancée to meet you for the first time and this is what happens? Jesus Christ.”

Zayn feels guilty again, but this time he doesn’t feel frustrated about it. This guilt is deserved. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately, as sincerely as possible. “She seems lovely.” There’s a hum of apology from the others too, and Niall looks somewhat appeased. The taut threads of irritation between them seem to have loosened. Then he says, “Look, lads—” and looks at Louis, and then Liam. “I’m definitely happy to do some more charity stuff with you lot now the air’s been cleared.” Despite the fact that they seem to have fogged it up again over the last few minutes. Zayn feels bad about that, but at least he knows that Harry and Niall will be on his side. Zayn clarifies: “But any more than that, and I’m not going to be part of it.”

Louis nods slowly, and Zayn feels the tension between them easing. “That’s fair,” he says. “Harry?”

Harry looks at him and Liam, and then across at Zayn, and then down at his empty plate. He presses the tip of his index finger over a crumb on the tablecloth and then brushes it off again. “I don’t think there’s any point in immediately dismissing the idea. We could give it a go,” he says slowly, and for a split second Zayn feels a surge of anger that’s so intense it shocks him. Red pulses in front of his eyes and when he comes back to himself he’s surprised that he’s still parked there in Louis’s dining room chair. He glares across at Harry and tries to say silently, _You promised you’d have my back_ , but Harry is determinedly not making eye contact with him.

“Well, I’m a no,” Niall says firmly. “And the reason that I’m saying no is that you lads are my brothers and I love you. I don’t want to mess up the memories of the band that people have, and I don’t want to complicate any of our friendships. I’m terribly old now—” He pauses to smile wryly, and Harry is the only one who laughs. “—and frankly all that matters to me is my friends and my family and, of course, Abby. I don’t want to jeopardise any of that.”

“That’s excellent reasoning, Nialler,” Liam says supportively. 

There’s a long silence. There isn’t any anger between the five of them now – disappointment perhaps, but Zayn’s confident that Liam and Louis will get over that. But when he looks across at Harry he feels a searing irritation that he can’t quite compute: Harry’s infuriating determination that sitting on the fence is the right thing to do, his inability to say out loud what he really wants, his insistence on being the good guy one hundred percent of the time. The fact that he promised Zayn that he’d be on his side, and then decidedly was not. 

They move through into the living room, where Eleanor and Abby are sitting together and talking in a way that looks tense and quiet: on the other side of the room, Bear and Freddie have torn down their Lego spaceship and begun to rebuild it instead. “Love, I’m going to heat up that apple crumble,” Louis says to Eleanor, and she nods and smiles up at him before he leaves the room. 

Zayn doesn’t want any fucking apple crumble. He wants to go home. He takes a seat at the end of a sofa, hoping that Niall or Liam will sit next to him, but instead Harry slides into the space. It’s unfortunate, because Zayn thinks that maybe if he was given a bit of time to digest everything, he would be able to be calm at least. Instead when Harry touches his knee tentatively he just finds himself jerking away and rolling his eyes. “Oh, come on,” Harry murmurs, “you’re actually cross with me?”

Zayn really is. He can’t help it. “No,” he says anyway. 

“For God’s sake,” Harry mutters between his teeth. 

Nobody’s looking at them. Liam and Abby have upended some sort of boardgame on the floor and are sorting through the pieces, and Niall appears to be telling Eleanor some sort of story that she looks decidedly unscintillated by, and Freddie and Bear are cackling loudly about aliens. Zayn would much rather be having a conversation about aliens right now, but apparently that’s just not his life in this moment. “You said you’d have my back,” he hisses. “You promised, in the car.”

Harry makes a noise that isn’t nearly apologetic enough. “They made some good points! And I just don’t think it’s a good idea to dismiss things immediately…”

“Oh, please. You have to be the good guy in every single fu—” Freddie and Bear are right there, so Zayn steers away from that particular choice of word. “—fudging situation that you’re in. You need to learn to stick up for what you actually want.” Dangling unspoken, Zayn leaves the words: _And if you want me_ …

Harry seems to get it. He sets his jaw obstinately. “I was just trying to be professional,” he says. “Surely you’ve heard of being professional?”

“Oh, piss _off_ ,” Zayn says. He finds himself getting to his feet, suffused with angry energy. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he does know that he doesn’t want to be here, eating apple crumble and custard and playing torturously long board games and pretending to be friendly with people who don’t actually care about him. “Look,” he says, raising his voice a bit, “I’m off. Eleanor, thanks so much for lunch. Abby, it’s been incredible to meet you. Niall, Liam – I’ll talk to you both soon, yeah? Lads—” He looks around at Freddie and Bear. “Just – keep doing what you’re doing.” They goggle at him, faintly disturbed. That’s fair. Zayn feels faintly disturbed too. 

He’s started storming out, so it feels as though he needs to finish and get the job done properly. First of all he sticks his head into the kitchen. “I’m off,” he tells Louis, who’s pouring custard into a jug. When did he become the sort of person who poured custard into a jug instead of eating it with a spoon out of a saucepan? “Harry’s getting right on my tits.”

“Fair play,” Louis says, putting the inexplicable custard jug down. “Look…” He huffs out a sigh. “We’re all right, yeah?”

Are they? Zayn thinks about it and then realises that they are. Louis said what he wanted and then accepted it when the others rejected it. That’s understandable. “We’re fine.” They hug, brief and awkward. “Next time I’m in London—”

“And next time I’m in New York.” Louis lifts his arm and clumsily bumps his Bus 1 tattoo onto the matching one on Zayn’s hand. “See you soon, Zayn.”

In the hallway, Zayn pulls on his jacket. Harry appears out of the living room and says, “Zayn, you can’t just walk out, I drove you here.”

“What’s your point?” He’s actually got an excellent point, but that doesn’t mean that Zayn’s going to acknowledge it.

Harry’s eyes look like they’re going to bulge out of his head. “This is madness.”

“You said you’d have my back,” Zayn says, “and you didn’t. So.”

Harry opens his mouth and closes it again. As always, victory is bittersweet. Zayn leaves, but he doesn’t feel particularly good about it. He looks up and down the road and wonders which direction he should be walking in. He’s just getting his phone out and figuring out the updated Uber app when a bus comes trundling down the street. Automatically, he sticks his arm out, and it pulls up in front of him. He has to pay with a fiver because he hasn’t got any change but that doesn’t matter: he nudges himself into a front seat and turns his face to the window so that nobody recognises him, and takes deep breaths, so that his racing heart slows to a normal pace.

*

Unfortunately for absolutely everyone, Zayn needs to go back to Harry’s house to retrieve his things. His backpack is there with his passport in the zipped compartment inside. Otherwise, he’d probably just say fuck it and dismiss his left-behind possessions as gone forever, particularly after an afternoon spent shivering in a non-descript high street while attempting to call a cab and remember Harry’s address. He’s cold and damp when he presses Harry’s buzzer, and when he answers Zayn spits out, “I’m getting my stuff,” before Harry can say anything. There’s a moment of silence, and then Harry buzzes him inside the gates.

When he gets to the front door it’s open but Harry isn’t there. Fuck it. He marches upstairs and picks up his things from Harry’s bedroom, stuffing his backpack with discarded clothes. He grabs his watch from Harry’s bedside table and his charger out of the wall and pushes them in there too. When he clatters downstairs Harry’s standing in the living room hallway, looking unhappy. “Zayn, isn’t this a bit of an overreaction?” he mutters.

It doesn’t feel like one. Zayn shrugs at him. “You tell me. You promised you’d have my back and then you didn’t.” The worst part about it is that it reminds him of what happened years ago, when they were deciding whether to do the On The Road Again tour and another album after Four, when Harry promised in private that he didn’t want to do those things and then resolutely did not speak up about it in public, and then it all led to disaster and Zayn had to be the bad guy when he cracked into little pieces and fell apart and had to go home. It’s so unfair that Harry put him in that position again. He can’t quite bring himself to look in Harry’s eyes. “If we’re ever going to be together properly then you need to have my back.”

“Okay. I get that.” Harry’s voice is shaking a bit, damn it. Zayn is so perilously close to cracking. “It just felt really good?” Harry says, like a question. “Last night? Earlier this week?”

“No, I know.” Zayn pauses, despite himself. “Look, Harry, I just…”

“I know you’re going back to New York tomorrow,” Harry says, sounding like he’s making a big effort to be reasonable. “But we could stay in touch. Meet up again soon.”

Zayn finds himself wilting. There seems to be sincere feeling in Harry’s voice, and this could be something that he wants and that he’s looking for. Zayn wants to settle down. He wants to get married. He wants to have kids. So does Harry. This could be an opportunity to get exactly what he wants, with someone who cares about him, with someone who isn’t in it for the fame and money, with someone who knew him right from the start. “What makes you think it’s going to work now?” he says, finally looking at Harry, whose curls are wildly lopsided, as if he’s been running his hands through them. “After all this time?”

“Because we’re going to be kind to each other this time,” Harry says, unwavering this time.

That sounds good. That sounds so good. Zayn could fall into his arms right now, he could kiss him, he could be with him. He could cancel his flight. He could stay here, he knows that Harry would let him stay here as long as he wants. He could choose to be loved. There’s nothing better than being in love. “Do you promise?” he asks, feeling more fragile than he’d like.

“Of course I do,” Harry says, looking relieved. 

“Because…” Zayn closes his eyes, trying to rearrange his thoughts in his head. He suddenly feels terribly tired, his shoulders aching. “Because I want that. I want to be in a relationship. I’m tired of being single. I want someone in my life.”

There’s a silence that doesn’t feel right. He opens his eyes again and Harry’s staring at him, his eyes glittering with something that looks like – is that tears? Is he crying? Why would he cry? “Harry?” Zayn asks.

“The thing is,” Harry says, swiping a hand over his eyes, sniffing disgustingly – and his bottom lip wobbles, as though he’s a child. Whose bottom lips actually wobble in real life? It’s ridiculous. “The thing is,” he repeats, more firmly this time, “is that I don’t want to be with a man who just wants to be with _someone_. I want to be with a man who wants _me_. So maybe – maybe this won’t work.” He covers his face with his hands and shudders out, “Oh my God. Fuck,” almost to himself.

Zayn says: “Oh.” He doesn’t know what else to say. He does want to be with Harry. He likes his smiles and his careful breakfasts and his gentle hands. He likes his curious, mercurial spirit, and his odd, slow way of speaking. He isn’t certain, but he isn’t certain about anything these days. Tentatively, Zayn says, “I think I could love you.”

Harry’s already shaking his head. “But I’ve seen you in love, Zayn, you just – you fall, just like that, and if you don’t feel that now then—”

“But I could,” Zayn says, more desperately; he’s been angry but it seems terribly wrong now to end it altogether, it seems stupid and wrong and far too final. It isn’t perfect between them yet but there are so many years of history that it’s impossible for it to be perfect right away. “I could—”

“I think you should probably leave,” Harry says, his eyes downturned and his mouth an unhappy, tense line, and so – of course – Zayn does.


	4. FOUR.

FOUR.

New York is grey and dreary, which seems about right. He stayed at his Kings Cross flat overnight before flying back to JFK, half numb and half incredulous at what had happened the previous day. He messaged Louis and Niall and Liam: _We’re ok, yeah? Good to see you man_ , and got texts back containing varying levels of enthusiasm. On the whole he thinks they’ll be okay, although he knows he can survive it if they aren’t. Through the whole flight back, the knowledge of what happened with Harry hung over his shoulders like an albatross. He swallowed two sleeping pills dry and chugged four vodka and cokes, and woke up nauseated and groggy as the plane circled in New York, wind whipping at its wings, after dreams that he didn’t remember but that left him disconcerted and unhappy.

He still feels as though his body is the wrong size the next morning. Megan brings Dobby back to him bright and early, yowling and enraged in his carry box. When Zayn opens it he leaps out and hisses at them both before going to lick his paws furiously behind the curtain in the corner of the living room. “He screamed the whole way here,” Megan says. “I was on the subway. It was very embarrassing.”

“My little angel,” Zayn says. From behind the curtain, Dobby makes a hacking noise, and possibly vomits. 

Megan makes a face and mutters something that sounds a lot like “He’s a fucking demon cat,” but obviously is not because no one would ever dare to disrespect Dobby in that way. Then she lays out his schedule for the week: he has studio time booked, a photo shoot, a phone interview with a British DJ—

“What’s that for?” Zayn asks.

She looks uncomfortable. “For the show you did with the band last week. It’s to promote the sales of the movie of it.”

“All right.” He can handle that, probably. Everything else seems to be okay. He gets in a car and is taken to the studio, where he strums a guitar vaguely for eight hours and completely fails to do anything resembling creativity. Then he goes home again and decides to play video games. His console feels foreign and wrong in his hands after a week away from it, but he likes it anyway. Online nobody knows who he is and he has friends who just know him as AlienOnMarZ. Not having to be Zayn Malik for a while feels pretty incredible. He orders Chinese food and eats too much and makes himself feel sick, and when he finally turns his TV off he feels uneasy. He tries to root out that knot of uneasiness inside his chest, whether it’s the prospect of writing a new album or having eaten too much chicken and cashew nuts or refusing to do a reunion tour, and of course it all comes back to Harry, to his stricken face, to the way he kisses, to the scent of his skin, to the way that Zayn hurt him without meaning to at all. 

Unfortunately, he has always been pretty fucking excellent at hurting people. He cuts to the quick and then cuts himself off, and silence is an effective way of punishing whoever hurts him. He knows it’s cruel but he only tends to realise what he’s done when it’s over. When he has arguments, he often sees them from above, as though some malevolent force is possessing his body, hissing out nasty things that he’s pretty sure he doesn’t sincerely believe, going further than he should just to see if he can. And then afterwards, left alone in the silent ruins that he creates for himself—

He goes to bed, and does not sleep, and gets up the next morning, and repeats it all over again.

*

Life is life: he looks moodily into the camera at his photo shoot, and tells an interviewer that he had a great time seeing the lads again but that no, there won’t be a One Direction reunion for real any time soon. _Yes_ , he says over and over, in that first interview and then another the next day, _yeah, of course. Of course we’re still friends. We always will be. We’re brothers._ He buys a haul of vintage graphic novels off eBay for eight hundred and forty-nine dollars, and when they arrive they smell like mould and damp, like they’ve been sitting in someone’s garage for twenty years. He categorises and catalogues them anyway, slipping them into plastic sleeves as though he can salvage them that way. Liam flies to New York to promote his new single and comes over for lunch. Zayn clumsily cooks and tries to talk at the same time, spreading oil over a sheet of filo pastry and adding peppers and pesto and onions and chunks of goat’s cheese. Liam praises the food more than it deserves, which Zayn appreciates but also makes him feel as though perhaps Liam pities him. He doesn’t know why that would be the case, but the thought dogs him regardless. Just before he has to leave, Liam says, “Have you thought any more about the – about the, er—”

“No,” Zayn says, not really knowing where to look, “but I don’t need to think any more. I told you my decision. If there are any more charity shows, get in touch, but other stuff—”

“Definitely not?” Liam’s frowning, like he doesn’t quite understand.

“Never,” Zayn says, and throws him a bone: “probably never, anyway. But you lads do what you want, I’ll be happy for you, I’ll be cheering.”

“Well.” Liam clears his throat. “Niall won’t, so…”

Thank God for Niall. Zayn shrugs, and tries not to look too smug that he isn’t the only one who’s being difficult. “Sorry,” he says, not quite meaning it, and feels guilty for his lack of sincerity when Liam hugs him as he leaves and tells him three times to take good care of himself.

He spends Thanksgiving at Megan’s house, which is pleasant because her parents very evidently don’t care who he is. Her mother lets him mash the potatoes, and her father accepts his help with the washing up afterwards; he even makes Zayn rescrub a roasting tin that he doesn’t do well enough the first time. They live in upstate New York, and after the food he goes for a walk with Megan’s little brothers. The trees are all bare but he can tell that months ago the colours were rich and beautiful. The smell of old rain on the air reminds him of Hampstead Heath, and walking with Harry that morning. He remembers suddenly that he bought a bag of art supplies that he promptly forgot about – what happened to them? Are they still in Harry’s house, sitting untouched and unloved? Did Harry give them to someone? Donate them to charity? Are they still in their shiny white plastic bag or has he unpacked them into a cupboard? Has he used them? The little figure of Dobby that Harry bought him is sitting on Zayn’s bedside table: he isn’t sure what to do with it, but there are so many things about that trip to London that he’s unsure of. It makes him smile when he sees it, and he supposes that’s enough.

November winds its way into December, and snow starts to fall. New York is bitterly cold in the winter and he doesn’t think he’ll ever completely get used to it. He cranks up the heating in his apartment so he doesn’t have to wear a shirt, but the heat still somehow escapes through the closed windows so that there are cold spots that make him feel like he keeps walking through ghosts. Whenever he’s barefoot his feet get cold, and whenever he wears socks the floors are too slippery. Once when he’s by himself he slips and twists his ankle, and feels as though he might break out into petulant sobs as he sits there and holds his hand tight around the fast-swelling joint, as though he might be able to squeeze out whatever injury is there. He’s glad that he was alone – embarrassing, cringe, he wants to jump off a fucking bridge with the humiliation of slipping over like an old lady – but if he’s honest he’d also quite like a hug.

He goes to the doctor. She gives him a supportive elastic bandage. He complains a lot: his mother coos over him on the phone, which makes him feel marginally happier. After three days of cooing over him, she loses some of her sympathy and snaps “Are you sure it isn’t at least starting to heal?” and so he orders some crutches and calls the paps to take photos of him limping to a car and looking woebegone, to shock her into feeling sorry for him again. It doesn’t make him feel any better.

His ankle heals. He sits in his bed nestled in pillows and blankets and looks out of his window as sleet falls outside. The window stretches from the ceiling to the floor and across the city he can see Christmas lights starting to glitter red and green and gold. He texts Megan and says _What about a Christmas tree then?_ and so the next morning she sends him photos of three different pine trees to choose from. He goes for the biggest and plumpest, and digs around in his crawl space to find the boxes of decorations that he knows are in there somewhere. Each ornament is nestled carefully in white tissue paper and he is struck by how different the minutiae of his life would be if he had to do it all himself.

Megan is red-faced and out of breath when she and the doorman lug the Christmas tree into Zayn’s apartment. They set it up together: he lies on the floor and adjusts the trunk while she tells him whether or not the tree is straight – “A little to the left! No, the other left!” – before he gets up, sweaty and covered in pine needles. She puts on American Christmas music that he doesn’t know while they put the ornaments onto the tree. It doesn’t look anything like the tree his family had when he was growing up, which was fake and lopsided and had branches that looked like green stubbly sausages. Half of their decorations were papier-mache baubles that they’d made at school, covered with glued-on glitter and star stickers, along with fresh paper chains that they’d made every year out of coloured paper. On the whole, he isn’t sure which tree he prefers, but when they’re done Megan takes a step back to survey it with a happy sigh. “Do you have a tree?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “No way. My roommate’s cat is insane. He’d climb it, or pee on it, or both.”

Thankfully, Dobby has always been far too afraid of Zayn’s Christmas trees to accost them in any way. But he’s struck by the fact that he didn’t know that her roommate has a cat, or even that she has a roommate – and that he just put up his Christmas tree with a woman who he pays to spend time with him and to book his flights and to sort out his life. She’s a friend as well, or he hopes she is anyway, but it still feels weird and sad. 

The temperatures in New York get more and more glacial. His Christmas tree glows in the corner of his living room and he cancels the rest of the studio time that he had booked because he wasn’t getting anything done and it was starting to feel frustrating. He pulls a hat down over his forehead and goes to the theatre to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for the fourth time by himself. Afterwards he goes to a bar, a small, sad bar on the corner of a backstreet, the windows edged in fairy lights and the bar itself sticky with spilled drinks, and he drinks enough whiskey that he can’t feel his feet on his too-long walk home through the snowy streets. In his apartment he switches his fire on and holds his hands out in front of it until his fingers are cramping up from the heat. He texts his sisters, all of them, one after another, except it’s late so they must all be asleep and none of them text him back. So he goes online, clicks through the internet, has a couple of arguments on gaming forums, looks at some gifs of cats on Reddit – that makes Dobby wake up, arching his back and digging his claws into Zayn’s sofa, yowling and rubbing his bald-yet-fluffy head against Zayn’s arm as though Zayn’s been cheating on him with other cats and therefore he demands his attention.

Dobby settles down after Zayn tickles him under the chin for precisely three and a half minutes. Then he calmly swats Zayn’s hand away with his claws bared, tucks his head underneath one of his paws, and falls asleep, and Zayn is alone again. He goes on the Mail Online, scrolls down, and lo and behold: there are pictures of Harry, wearing a long forest-green coat and his maroon suede gloves and looking determinedly handsome as rain falls around him in crystallised dots. Behind him is the stupid haired designer, who has cut his hair so it’s marginally less stupid – a boyfriend, maybe, Zayn thinks – a boyfriend, again.

He feels suddenly despairing, as though the ground has fallen away beneath his feet, and so he goes to bed.

*

One of his secrets is that if Harry had wanted to go out with him back in the day, he probably would have gone for it. They spent a long time hooking up, doing things together that they’d never done with anyone else, but it wasn’t as though they were the only ones in whatever fucked up relationship they had going. Sometimes they’d go out and they’d meet girls at clubs, or there would be girls outside their hotel or at their hotel bar that they’d hit it off with. Then he’d find himself in a hotel room fucking a girl from behind while she sucked Harry’s dick, making awkward eye contact with him and wondering whether the condom was about to fall off or it was his imagination. There were other girls too, girls he met without Harry by his side – girls he met through his Twitter or Instagram direct messages, or girls that Louis got talking to and who he claimed would keep any hook-ups quiet. Most of the time they did, some of the time less so. That was embarrassing, but not enough to put an end to it all. If Zayn’s totally fucking honest with himself, he felt like he lost his virginity late, so when he started having sex, he didn’t particularly want to stop. He fucked a girl in a car park up against the side of a van while Louis kept watch, and a week later Zayn returned the favour. A girl lost her virginity to him in a hotel bed without telling him beforehand that she’d never done it before. She started crying when she saw how much blood there was and so he’d just had to sit there and put his arm around her shoulders and will his boner to magically go away as the bloodstain spread on the hotel sheets. He saw another girl a few times and then a month later she told him she’d had an abortion and that the baby had been his. He’d felt sick, stalked her Twitter account into the early hours of the morning alone in bed in a hotel room after filming a TV appearance in some godforsaken town, told himself that she was lying because there were recent photos of her laughing with some lad who looked like he played rugby, looking carefree and holding a glass of champagne – but there was no proof, and then she blocked him and that was that. 

There was Rebecca Ferguson – they’d started sleeping together during the X Factor tour and she’d wanted to make it into a real relationship, so he’d said, why the fuck not, and they’d gone for it, held hands in public and smiled knowingly at the paparazzi. He met her kids a couple of times in the capacity of being Mummy’s boyfriend, which had felt entirely different to meeting them backstage at the X Factor when he’d been sort of seeing Geneva and running around between dressing rooms and being a bit of a prick. It had been way too much, so much responsibility, the reality of it hammered home for him when her son fell over and cut his knee and cried and Rebecca had turned into a maternal, cooing figure shushing him and kissing it better, which hadn’t been unsexy exactly but it had made him feel entirely out of his depth. Then they’d gone to America for the first time and there had been more girls there – and Harry. Of course there was Harry. There has always been Harry. 

There was an outdoor party with all the girls who had been in the _What Makes You Beautiful_ video and the five of them – they had a bonfire, and coolers full of cans of beer, and all the food left over from catering that day. Liam had done his level best to stay faithful to Danielle, eyes on his phone the whole time so he carefully did not look at any other girls, Niall had got drunk too quickly and got a splitting headache, Louis had danced like a madman, and Zayn had found Harry down by the water, taken him by the hand, and pulled him away to the other side of that white-painted cabin on the beach that they’d filmed beside earlier that day. They’d kissed, messy from the day and the beer, Harry’s cheeks hot from sunburn and his hand in Zayn’s trousers. Later that night Harry had been sick from too much sun and drinking, his eyes and nose streaming as he heaved into a patch of grass. Zayn put his hand on Harry’s back and tried not to watch or to inhale in case the sight and smell made him sick too. Louis took over then, and shepherded Harry back to the hotel. When Zayn got back there an hour later he texted Harry, _U ok babe, you looked bad this evening_ and a row of kisses, made bold and flowery by alcohol – and he’d sent it to Rebecca by mistake and so, of course, the whole thing with her had ended.

Months passed. On the road together, in hotels, in the back of the van with Harry’s fingers trailing absently over his thigh as they both gazed out of the window. Back in London, in their flats – Harry would come down to Zayn’s because if Zayn went up to his too often, Louis would start asking questions, although in hindsight Louis probably knew what was going on all along. Once upon a time, the flats they lived in had been a mental asylum, and late at night when they couldn’t sleep they explored the old corridors together, Zayn biting back hysterical laughter when Harry put cold fingers under the hem of his t-shirt to trail them across the small of his back like a ghost. Unexplained shadows in corners, too-long corridors haunted by the footsteps of the people who had suffered there before. There was a cold, empty area of grass where there was once a building that burned down and took fifty-two women with it. “They probably weren’t even actually mad,” Harry said later as they huddled on Zayn’s sofa, Harry’s legs flung over his. He remembers that Harry’s tracksuit bottoms had edged up a little on one leg to his mid-calf and he’d been playing with Harry’s leg hair, tugging it gently – he’d liked doing it because it had felt strangely intimate, like they were more than two friends who sometimes had sex. Harry wriggled his toes in his thick socks, white towelling, the sort of thing they’d worn for PE in school, the sort of socks that Harry would rather die than wear these days. “I bet that they got sent here by their husbands for being odd or different – or lesbians, maybe.”

That was disconcerting. Zayn didn’t know what to say, so he leaned forward and kissed the corner of Harry’s jaw before pressing his nose against his cheek, just where his curls met his skin. He smelled like facewash and dirty hair. “Maybe we would have got sent here.”

“But no one knows about us.” Harry turned his head to kiss him again, longer now.

“But they could,” Zayn said. His heart pounded, so hard that it almost hurt.

A pause. Harry blinked, pulled his leg away from Zayn’s hand. “But they don’t.”

And then there had been Caroline Flack, which had been disconcerting to say the least. He’d said “So she’s… she’s more than thirty, isn’t she?” and Harry had said “Thirty-two,” like the cat who’d got the cream, a shit-eating grin that had made Zayn want to punch him slightly. It felt fucked up, it was fucked up – she was a grown woman and Harry was seventeen. If he’d been a sixth former like he was supposed to be, then surely she wouldn’t have gone there? But he wasn’t and so she did, and Zayn wasn’t sure if the weird feelings in his gut about the whole thing were down to jealousy or moral outrage. “You dated a _mum_ ,” Harry had said, rolling his eyes, and that had been an irritatingly fair point.

Then he met Perrie, and he’d fallen in love almost straight away, stars bursting out of his eyes, his mouth, his arsehole, his everything – this girl with her loud laugh and her incredible voice and her instinctive warmth. A girl who understood him, who was going through the same thing as him – a working class northern girl who felt too small for the big world that the X Factor had flung her into. He adored her, texted her, talked to her, sucked Harry’s cock arguably less than he usually did, and then somehow he won her over. Then Nick was on the scene with Harry and that was jarring and bizarre and he felt oddly shaken about it, as though his place in Harry’s life had been usurped, that his time as Harry Styles’s Big Gay Experience had come to an end. They toured across America that summer, jammed in a tour bus, the five of them sprawled out shoulder to shoulder on the little sofa in the evenings. Then there was Harry crawling into his bunk at night, the two of them trying so hard to keep silent as the bus jolted along long straight roads and the other boys slept. One morning Niall gave them a peculiar glance and said, “You two do know that the curtains aren’t soundproof, don’t you?” and Harry just smiled, his dimples on full view. Zayn felt himself blush right down his neck and up to the tips of his ears as he turned away.

Other girls, obviously. On tour and at home too, when he felt as though the walls were closing in, when Perrie was away or at her own flat and the loneliness became unbearable. He DMed girls on Twitter: _What are you doing tonight? What are you wearing? Bet you look fit as fuck. Can I send a car for you?_ Drunk on money. Drunk on the fact that they all said yes. He and the boys had moved out of their flats and he was in his house, Danny and Ant flitting in and out – God, what the fuck are they doing nowadays? – and the windows too big, the garden too empty, the house too silent when he was alone there.

Harry stopped coming over and then he started again, alcohol on his breath and storms in his eyes. “I miss you,” he said, swaying on the doorstep. Perrie wasn’t there that night and Zayn put him to bed in the spare room, a glass of water and a packet of Nurofen on the bedside table like he’d seen people do in films, and as an afterthought a bucket by the side of the bed just in case. The next morning Harry came downstairs after a shower, eyes squinted – “It’s too bright,” he complained, his voice rough, “I hate the sun…” – and Zayn made him strong tea and stroked his damp hair off his forehead before Harry leaned in to kiss him, tired and a little clumsy. 

Stories got out about other girls. There was something about a boy too, something that his publicist rolled his eyes irritably about and said, “Don’t worry, it’s sorted,” and then it appeared in exactly zero newspapers. Perrie cried down the phone at him when there was a story in the paper about another girl that they hadn’t managed to keep quiet. “Is she prettier than me?” she asked, as if that had made a difference when the only reason Zayn had fucked her was that she’d been there. He hated himself for it, but not enough to never do it again. He followed Perrie on tour and had that out of body feeling again as he begged her to stay with him, as though he was acting out a scene and living somebody else’s life. He still hadn’t worked out what he wanted. Even now he doesn’t know if he ever will. But at the time it felt as though she was the only thing that could make him happy and make him feel complete and so he couldn’t let her go. He came back to London that night. Exhausted. Got a taxi to Hampstead and leaned tiredly on Harry’s buzzer until he opened the door, bright-eyed and cheerful. Alexa fucking Chung was in his house, and Nick Grimshaw, and Daisy Lowe too, all pretending that they were normal real people instead of Celebrities with a capital ‘C’. Harry offered him a Corona from the fridge and pressed a chunk of lime into the neck of the bottle. Zayn drank it and tactfully did not point out that in his absolutely correct opinion Corona tasted like piss-water. They all put on a film – Rocky Horror, which at the time Zayn found inexplicable and not as funny as it thought it was – and he managed to nudge Harry away and upstairs, where he fucked him in the bathroom over the sink and in front of the mirror and paused halfway through to say “Look. Look up. Look at us.”

Harry did, a bead of sweat crystal on his forehead, looked up at their joined reflections, Zayn poised over him, their eyes meeting in their reflections. Look at them there. Look at them now, continents apart and silent, non-existent in each other’s lives. And then later Zayn got engaged: there were times then when he was with Perrie and he really believed that this was his life, it was the two of them against the world and she was all he needed. But at other times he was with other girls or with Harry or other men, even, few and far between back then but they were still there between the lines. At those times, he barely remembered that Perrie existed. His two lives seemed so far apart that he hardly even regarded it as cheating. Later that fell apart too, of course, which had always been going to happen, right from the beginning. He doesn’t think that you can lie that much to another human being and then go on to spend your life with them. He had that problem with Gigi too: he made his life about her and she knotted herself into him as well, and as it turned out, being alone together wasn’t enough for either of them. 

He has never lied to Harry.

He has hidden the truth, they have gone through periods of barely speaking. But he has never lied. That seems important.

*

He goes back to the UK for Christmas. Before he travels to Bradford, he goes to Louis and Eleanor’s house for a meal that turns out to be much more enjoyable than the one during which Louis sprung a surprise reunion on him. Freddie is in LA for Christmas, which Louis is sad and sullen and slightly embittered about, but they drink slightly too much and order curries and the dahl tastes almost but not quite like Zayn’s dad’s. Eleanor takes his hands before he leaves and makes him promise to come to their New Year’s Eve party, and as he hesitates Louis says quietly, “I don’t think Harry’s going to be there, pal, so don’t worry about it.” That makes sense: Harry mentioned that he was going to be in Cheshire anyway. Zayn assumes that his own invitation there has been very much rescinded. 

In Bradford, his mum makes him a stocking even though he’s approximately two thousand years old in spirit if not in body. There are new socks with candy canes on them, and underwear with pictures of the Hulk on it, and a set of watercolour pencils, and a copy of _A Christmas Carol_ with a gold-embossed cover. In the toe of the stocking there’s a bag of chocolate coins, which he eats half of before he shuffles downstairs, wearing his old dressing gown and slippers. They have Buck’s Fizz for breakfast and his mum gets slightly giddy off it and has to have a sit down. Doniya brings the kids over and he heaps them with presents, a remote-controlled car and a model dinosaur that actually walks and roars and a Barbie playhouse, and his nieces get overwrought and have a terrible argument that results in howls and sobs for five minutes before they’re best mates again. Megan texts him a photo of Dobby wearing a Santa hat and looking furious about it, and in his Christmas cracker he gets a tiny sewing kit that’s useless and practical at the same time. That evening they watch the Doctor Who and Strictly Christmas specials, and his dad has more opinions than Zayn expected about who should win Strictly based on their footwork. “Yaser, it’s also about the performance factor and how festive they are,” his mum says exasperatedly, and his dad says with inexplicable doggedness, “I’m just saying: that was not a good fleckerl.” 

He stays in Bradford for the strange, empty period between Christmas and New Year. Nothing happens except that Waliyha keeps bringing over increasingly discounted tins of Quality Street, so he spends most of his time eating chocolate and turkey sandwiches and lying on his mum’s sofa, watching police procedurals and Agatha Christie films. On Coronation Street there’s a wedding and he finds that it makes him sad. He still wants that, despite everything. Another year is nearly over and all he’s done is cock up what now feels like his final chance to be happy. Then he dismisses it as mulled wine-induced melodramatic melancholy and complains until his mum changes the channel to Midsomer Murders, which is much more cheerful.

The next morning it’s New Year’s Eve, which means that he needs to get down to London to go to Louis’s party. He sleeps in the back of the car for hours and then when he gets to his flat he barely has any clothes there. In the corner of his wardrobe on the floor he finds the backpack that he brought with him the last time he was in London and that he clearly neglected to take home. Vaguely, he remembers pulling things out of it and hurriedly repacking them in a bigger bag to go back to New York, his passport and his favourite jeans and his worn underwear. But slung over the top of the backpack there’s the jacket he borrowed from Harry, black and gold-embroidered. He slips it on over a white shirt and black trousers. He looks good, if a bit like a matador, but nothing in life is perfect. He doesn’t remember taking this jacket with him when he left Harry’s house, but he doesn’t remember much at all from that day other than the terrible sinking feeling he had. _I could have loved him._ He remembers holding hands with Harry on that damp November night and the excitement coiling in his stomach as, fifteen years after their first kiss, they made their way to their first real date. _Maybe I did love him_. In his reflection, his eyes are endless dark pits. When did his default expression get so sad? Experimentally he pushes the corners of his mouth upwards into a smile but there’s still something anxious in his eyes. He blinks and turns away from whoever his reflection has become.

*

Unsurprisingly, Louis’s party is already bustling by the time he makes a fashionably late entrance just before ten. Louis has always been excellent at throwing epic parties and it appears that tonight is no different. There are huge silver balloons spelling out ‘Happy New Year!’ and ‘Fuck You 2025!’ which is bizarre. Every year that passes feels as though Zayn is being launched further and further into the future, like he’s on a time machine that he can’t work out how to get off. He feels like he’s getting further away from something he desperately wants to get back to, like he’s being displaced more and more every year that goes by, but he can’t quite work out what it is that he misses so much.

Someone slings an arm around his shoulders and he turns to see Niall, his cheeks high with colour the way they always are when he drinks, and Abby smiling beside him. “Glad you made it!” he says, and Zayn hugs them both at the same time. Abby’s body is a bit stiff and awkward, which he appreciates because he feels the same way and also feels guilty about because it’s definitely a stupid assumption that everyone wants to be hugged by him. She says, “It’s nice to see you again,” with what seems like sincere enthusiasm and a light goes off in his brain: _A friend! A potential new friend!_ as he smiles back at her and asks about her work, about their Christmas, about their wedding plans. Apparently she’s in the middle of persuading Niall to get a dog, which is the best news ever, and their wedding will be in June, which is marginally less exciting but still good news. “We’d love it if you can make it,” she says, and he mostly believes that she’s being sincere. 

“We’re sending out save the dates in the next few weeks,” Niall adds, and a little more gruffly, “I mean, I’ll understand if you can’t make it, if you’re in the States or working or—”

“I’ll be there,” Zayn says, and touches Niall’s elbow. “I promise.”

“Yeah?” Zayn hadn’t realised there was tension in Niall’s face but it seems to have fallen away. “Good!” He catches sight of Zayn’s almost-empty glass. “Come on, mate, let’s get you another one of those…” 

At a lot of parties Zayn has been to, even parties at people’s houses, there have been bar staff, suited and booted waiters hovering with trays of hors d’oeuvres, mixologists making personalised cocktails, but at Louis’s party the vibe is a lot more relaxed. There’s a spread of food that looks a bit like a medieval banquet and buckets full of ice and beer bottles, and admittedly there’s a table lined with winter cocktails, but on the whole it seems pleasantly raucous, the kind of party that you can disappear into instead of feeling as if you’re somehow on display. Back when they all lived in the flats together, Louis and Harry threw an epic New Year’s party – this was when Harry was sort of loosely dating Caroline Flack, and Zayn wasn’t sure what to do about Perrie’s number sitting heavily in his phone contacts. But Caroline and Perrie hadn’t been at the party and so they had gravitated towards each other, Harry and Zayn, the way they always did when they were drinking and there was nowhere else they had to be. They’d done it later that year in Australia too, sloppy drunk, going out to clubs and kissing messily in the cars on the way back to their hotel, the driver paid enough to not notice a thing. 

But at that party, that New Year’s Eve, Zayn felt invincible. They were on their way to taking over the world and he hadn’t realised yet how hard it would be. The anticipation was sweet and beautiful, and he still thought that everything would be all right in the end. Inside it was carnage: drinks were spilled, the floorboards were tacky and his trainers smacked off them as he walked. Someone had clogged the bathroom sink by being extremely sick into it. From just one glance Zayn had seen tomatoes in there and something mysteriously purple, before he grimaced and closed the door. He saw someone snorting cocaine, and tried to look cool and not shocked about it. The music was thumping, everything reverberating, and Zayn found himself twisting between different people: laughing with Danny and Ant, being dragged into a circle of dancing girls by Eleanor – she and Louis had only just started dating then, but they were already so comfortable with each other that it was as though they had been best friends for years already. There were songs that everyone else seemed to know and Zayn did not, and meanwhile Liam drank too much and had to be looked after by Danielle. An intern from their label was there, looking anxious and as though she felt as though she shouldn’t have come, which was probably true because one of Louis’s old school friends was almost certainly going to attempt to fuck her.

Zayn had one drink too many, a cocktail that contained a couple of shots more than he thought. He found that his head was spinning and that his feet didn’t seem to make any sense as he placed them on the floor. Niall clapped him on the shoulder and frowned into his face and said “You all right, mate?” and Zayn nodded, and Niall said “Did you see someone was sick in the sink?” and then laughed and said “Classic!” and Zayn tried to laugh as well, wondering vaguely who was going to clean it, whether Louis or Harry would be the one who, the next morning, would put on rubber gloves and scoop the vomit from the sink to the toilet. Neither, probably: over and over again, he forgot the things that he could afford now. New socks when his got holes in them, an unobtrusive lady who came in to hoover and clean his shower twice a week, to not worry about the £2 card charge when he was buying cigarettes from the local newsagent. He’d bought the best TV that he could find, but couldn’t work out how to set up the surround sound, and although he’d been given a number to call, phoning people made him feel anxious and so he hadn’t yet. He could afford to go to the cinema whenever he wanted, and buy snacks there instead of sneaking in sandwich bags of popcorn his mum had made at home and multipack cans of Coke, but he didn’t really have the time or anybody to go with. Nothing seemed to make sense.

The party amped up, the later and later it got. Liam reappeared after eating half a loaf of bread and drinking three glasses of water. “I SHOULDN’T HAVE ANY ALCOHOL,” he shouted over the music to anyone who would listen, “I’VE ONLY GOT ONE KIDNEY.” In the corner of his line of vision, Zayn caught sight of Louis rolling his eyes. Niall took Zayn by the hips and made him dance, and Zayn turned his head halfway through an accidental shimmy to see Harry looking at them from the corner of the room. At quarter to twelve, Louis began to herd everyone together so that they could traipse downstairs, through the long corridors that had once housed mental patients and their nurses, and to the night outside. The sky was clear and inky blue, which meant that it was freezing: Zayn could see his breath, and felt sweat drying cold on his skin. Everyone clustered towards the centre of the grass in the courtyard, other neighbours coming out to join them – Louis has always been a twat in many ways, but ‘inhospitable towards neighbours’ is not remotely on his list of faults and failings – and everyone linked arms and shouted a countdown to the new year at the tops of their lungs, their breath frosting upwards into the sky. Finally someone shouted “Happy new year!” and the fireworks were let off. In front of him, Liam and Danielle were kissing, and Louis had wrapped himself around Eleanor. Zayn felt empty, and looked for Niall so that maybe they could hug in a man-to-man way – and then there was a hand around the top of his arm and he turned to see Harry.

He let himself be led back towards the building, into the shadows, and almost tripped into a flowerbed. Harry laughed and he found himself laughing too, and then their mouths met, a new year’s kiss, his first kiss of 2012, the whole world aching out ahead of them and all the possibilities that anyone could offer. Above them the sky was lit up with stars and with fireworks, pink and green and gold; Harry stopped kissing him and they turned to look up at them, Harry’s nose pressed cold against his cheek, their chests still against each other’s. “Happy new year, Zayn,” Harry murmured, and Zayn said, “Happy new year,” back to him, tugging lightly on the lapels of Harry’s jacket. “It’s going to be a good one for us,” he added, “I can tell,” and Harry said, “Yeah?” and Zayn said, “Yeah. Absolutely,” and kissed him again, drawing him back further into the shadows, further out of the light.

And now here Zayn is again, at a tamer party of Louis’s, more intimate and warmer – and with less vomit, which he appreciates. A party with no vomit is a rousing success. Having specially curated cocktails instead of plastic bottles of Coke and Smirnoff and Tesco Value orange juice means they’ve gone up in the world. He still doesn’t know half the songs that are played, and he’s old enough to admit to himself that he doesn’t like them either, but he doesn’t mind. There are friendly faces around, people to catch up with and people to get to know. When Niall flits off to be unacceptably sociable, Zayn finds a spare sofa and sits with Abby, asks her where she went to university – Durham – and how she got started in her career – editorial assistant at Canongate, which meant she lived in Edinburgh for a while, which according to her is beautiful and artistic and cold and full of booze. She tells him that part of the first Harry Potter movie was filmed in the cloisters of Durham Cathedral, that she would get the train up there from Birmingham, where she’s originally from, and that looking over the city as her train pulled in at the beginning of every term is one of her most cherished memories. She tells him that she didn’t know who Niall was to start with, knew he was famous but not by how much, and that she didn’t realise the scale of the money involved and his life and his career until she arrived at his house for the first time and saw his wall of security cameras and the awards lined up in his cabinet. That made her reconsider the relationship a bit, but – she shrugs, and smiles helplessly, and he takes that to mean: _He was irresistible._ She says that she loves to cook for Niall, that her favourite cookbook writer is Diana Henry – her eyes go wide when he says that he hasn’t heard of her, gripping his forearm: “You have to buy _How To Eat A Peach_. Get your phone out, write it down. The cover actually feels like a peach – it’s fuzzy and beautiful. You’ll love it.” She likes to lie in bed and read cookbooks when she can’t sleep, which Niall doesn’t mind since she bought him an eye mask. Her eyes go soft and affectionate as she says, “He just lies there, snores away. It’s sweet.” Niall _is_ sweet. Zayn knows that too. He likes her. He thinks they’ll be happy.

Liam shows up, hand-in-hand with a leggy brunette girl who looks nervous. She’s a model, Zayn can tell; she looks like the sort of girl who’ll either turn into Irina Shayk or cultivate a career selling special tea on Instagram that gives you the shits. Louis’s old mates Calvin and Oli are around as well, and when Zayn sees them they aren’t unfriendly exactly but they’re not all that delighted to see him either. That’s fair: he feels the same way. Eleanor drags him out to the kitchen and pours him a glass of the ‘nice’ red wine from a bottle she’s got hidden in the spice cupboard so none of the other guests drink it, and then they complain about people together, like why won’t Liam’s new girlfriend say a single word to anyone, and is the guy in the navy shirt on drugs or just extremely sweaty and enthusiastic, and why is Harry being annoying and aloof like usual—

That catches him off guard. “Harry’s here?” he asks unsteadily.

Eleanor pauses, frowning at him like she’s worried she’s fucked up somewhere along the lines. “Yeah – didn’t Louis tell you? We didn’t think he’d be able to make it – I mean, he’s Harry, you know? But…” She shrugs, waving her glass.

“Right.” Some of the fun seems to have gone out of the night for Zayn. He didn’t bargain on having to be polite to Harry, or attempting to not feel sad and awkward. _I want to be with a man who wants me._ But he did, didn’t he? Maybe he didn’t want Harry with enough specificity. Maybe he just craved someone’s hands on his body and he didn’t care whose. But the way that Harry made him laugh, how easy it was to spend time with him. It’s over now, of course, but still. Still, who knows what could have been? But if it was going to work out, it would have worked out by now.

Eleanor looks repentant. “Zayn, I’m sorry.”

“It really doesn’t matter,” he says, although of course it does. He melts back into the party and wonders if he should go home. But when he checks the time it’s twenty to twelve, and it feels as though he should at least stay to see the new year in. Spending that time sitting in the back of a car on his way back to his empty flat would be pathetic. And here he has friends, or at least people who are starting to become friends again, or for the first time, in Abby’s case. He doesn’t want to leave early yet again. So he lets Louis sling an arm around his shoulders and press a drunken kiss to his cheek and a champagne glass into his hand. He looks across the room for Harry’s familiar face, his green eyes, his tousled hair, and eventually he finds them: he’s talking to Abby, smiling kindly down at her in that magnetic way that he has. He seems to feel Zayn’s eyes on him, and looks up; his face is frozen for a moment and then he lifts a hand and mouths: _Hi_. 

_Hi_ , Zayn mouths back at him. Everything else seems to have gone quiet. The music is still blaring but the fact of Harry’s face is drowning it out. There are so many things that he wants to say – I’ve missed you, perhaps we were wrong, was it a mistake – but he knows that he won’t. As he watches, Niall comes up behind Abby and slings an arm around her waist, and Harry looks back at him again. He nods minutely towards the stairs, and Zayn nods back at him. 

He waits for a moment or two before he follows Harry upstairs, nerves and excitement warring inside him. As he climbs the stairs he feels as though he’s moving towards something – making a statement, some grand act, some big thing. When he’s up there he follows the open doors, closing them behind him as he goes, finally making his way through a spare bedroom towards a balcony on the back of the house. Louis’s house is on high ground, and from it you can see a lot of the city – not quite all the way to the celebrations in the middle of London, but not far off. Outside the air is cold enough to catch at his lungs and he folds his arms across his chest, hands stuck in his armpits, as he approaches Harry, who’s standing with one forearm on the arm rail, a lick of curly hair falling across his forehead, wild and rumpled like a gentler Heathcliff. His eyes crinkle at the edges when he sees Zayn, in not quite but almost a smile.

There are so many things to say, but Zayn says none of them. Instead when Harry reaches out for him, he takes his hand and lets himself be pulled into his body heat. “I recognise that jacket.” Harry reaches out to finger the gold embroidery around the neckline.

“You told me to keep it,” Zayn says. He can feel himself smiling reluctantly.

“A likely story,” Harry says. Downstairs, the countdown begins and he straightens up. “Maybe we should…”

“No,” Zayn says, not letting go of his hand. The wind whips at their hair as they stand close together and wait for the old year to turn into a new one. It’s a night that Zayn finds excruciatingly sad and happy at the same time. So many new leaves that he thought he would turn over. So many goals that have gone unattained. And so many new possibilities, too. So much potential. So much good that might be to come. The tip of Harry’s nose is faintly pink and it makes him hurt with affection. “Five,” they shout downstairs, probably gathering into a circle to sing Auld Lang Syne. “Four! Three! Two! One! Happy new year!”

And fourteen years later, for the second time, Harry Styles kisses him as the old year ticks into the new one, and fireworks explode in the sky all around.

*

Zayn goes back to Harry’s house. Of course he does. They hold hands in the taxi on the way home, and when they get there, Zayn fucks him slowly and undoes him completely. _It was you_ , he tells Harry’s chest silently with his mouth as he covers his skin in kisses. _It could have been us. You weren’t just anybody to me._ They forget to close the curtains and so the early morning sun wakes him up, which is lucky because he has a flight to catch. “I could miss it,” he suggests, and Harry just laughs, which Zayn takes to mean: _You should go_. He puts on the same clothes as the night before and Harry kisses him goodbye at the door, sleepy-eyed and tasting of toothpaste. “This was good,” Harry says, faintly croaky the way he always is when he’s just woken up. “I’m glad we’ve done this. Closure, right?”

“Right.” Zayn’s throat feels as though it’s swelling tight shut. He kisses Harry goodbye again, for good measure. He goes back to his flat and packs his stuff, cramming dirty clothes into his suitcase. He has a lot more than he started with, thanks to Christmas presents from his family, so he picks up his old backpack to push some of his things into – the jelly bean machine, the Spiderman scarf, the unexplained mysteries book that he’s intending to get stuck into on the plane. At the bottom of the bag there’s something wrapped carelessly in brown paper, and he takes it out and folds the paper back. Inside lies Harry’s signed Pablo Neruda book and he feels his chest tighten with emotion as though he’s about to cry. When is this from? Presumably the last time he was in London, when Harry showed him the book for the first time. When he gathered his things hastily before he left and didn’t bother to look in the bottom of this bag. He touches the cover with careful fingertips, the way that he once touched the contours of Harry’s face as Harry tried not to smile, his breath tickling the undersides of Zayn’s fingers. Twenty love poems. A song of despair. Zayn feels sometimes as though he’s been spending his entire adult life singing a song of despair, that his love poems have been worked into it instead of standing alone. Maybe that’s why he’s standing by himself in the grey early morning of a brand new year with nothing but an exhausted body and fast-fading hopes.

God, he’s dramatic. This is what having sex with Harry does to him. It’s ridiculous. He pushes the book back into the bottom of his bag, finishes packing, and leaves for the airport.

*

Even now he hasn’t quite adjusted to the States being his home. There’s still a temporary feel to it, like there’s part of his soul that knows he’ll move back one day. Perhaps when the career stuff dies down in the US, perhaps when the New York winters become too harsh for him, perhaps when his mum and dad get older and he wants to spend more time with them. His Christmas tree is half dead in the corner of his living room and he texts Megan to ask her to do something about it. She isn’t back with Dobby yet, which means that his apartment is achingly quiet, and cold too. It’s hard to believe that less than twelve hours ago he was in Harry’s bed. He curls up in his own bed, pulling his duvet right up to his chin, and tries to ignore the fact that his sheets smell stale. His pillows smelling like his own unwashed hair isn’t his favourite thing in the world—

And then he thinks that there could be something in that. He remembers Pillowtalk back in the day, fucking and fighting, a paradise and a warzone: but beds don’t have to be about that, relationships don’t have to be about passion and violence, hurting each other over and over. One of the things it took him a while to realise, outside Harry, was that sex didn’t have to be serious. For a while he felt as though what he was doing with Harry was the wrong way to do it – the way that Harry would bite the back of his neck to make him laugh, the way he’d try to put Harry off his game when they were changing positions by wriggling his eyebrows. Like sex had to be something separated from the rest of the relationship, like you couldn’t be that deeply sexually connected to someone and have a laugh at the same time. But that isn’t true. That isn’t true at all. 

He roots in his bedside table for his notebook and a pen and starts to make a list. _Pillowtalk v. 2. The lines that a pillow leaves on the side of a face. Watching someone wake up and smile._ Combining the way that Harry held onto him like he was drowning and Zayn was a lifebelt, with the way that once they both lost their balance and ended up in a tangled heap on the floor: he laughed so hard that his chest hurt and his eyes streamed, in the most fucking inelegant and ungainly position ever, legs splayed and balls absolutely out, Harry moaning piteously about how his ankle was broken – which obviously it was not – and giggling helplessly at the same time, his head pressed into the side of Zayn’s neck, Zayn holding him closer and closer – _I want to hold you close tonight and always. I want to wake up next to you._ He could turn those lines around. He could write them into a more loving song. _I want you to be my always. I want to be your smile._ The tiny brown freckles dotted along the ridge of Harry’s nose. The peach fuzz hairs on the curves of his earlobes. His bony ankles and feet. There is a way that passion and gentleness can co-exist. Zayn doesn’t want a warzone of a relationship: he just wants someone who feels like home.

*

The studio beckons. Harry is photographed again with his ex-boyfriend, which is fine only because Zayn feels uncertain enough to write about it. Everything is copy, right? Everything can be used. He gets words by Rilke tattooed on his leg, _No feeling is final_ , which is fucking lucky because the tattoo is close to the bone and stings like hell and by the end he can’t wait to get out of the tattooist’s chair. Nothing is final, not the good, not the bad, not the pain that comes with a fresh tattoo: all he can do is push on through it all and hope that when the end eventually comes he’s content. Happiness is temporary, there is no happiness without sadness, but contentment could make a life that’s worth living. A day spent in rainy Hampstead, eating good food and chatting shit and looking up at autumn skies. _This is peace and contentment. It’s new._ He finds the poets who’ve felt it and written it all before, and of course goes finally to Harry’s beloved Neruda. The poems seem more lyrical in Spanish even though he doesn’t understand them completely when he reads them aloud and tries to roll the pronunciations messily around on his tongue. Their translations hold a sort of distance which he appreciates, as though they are just slightly up for extra interpretation, as though a word choice could have differed here or there, as though he can slot his own life and feelings into the poems more than he can with other work. He thinks of Harry on tour after Zayn left the band, reading all of those words and trying to find comfort in them. There are no words that would have made him feel better, Zayn discovers, except for a vague acknowledgement that other people have felt pain too, and got through it. _Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond. You fill everything, you fill everything. You live again in time, slender and silent_. A going away is like a death: nothing could ever have been the same again. And then life again: _I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees_. He thinks of the cherry blossoms that he’s seen over the world, in Japan, in DC, arcs of beauty against the bluest skies. He thinks of Harry’s face turning up towards them, like a bloom in the sun. _You are mine, mine._

He writes. He writes some more. He covers pages and pages with words and lyrics and fragments, and goes to the studio to record. On his birthday, his producer brings in an ice-cream cake, and Zayn blows out the candles. Megan shows up halfway through the night with containers of takeout and a concerned expression. He realises that he’s losing weight again and that he hasn’t seen his therapist in months, and so he makes weekly appointments again and signs up to a late-night cooking class a couple of blocks from his apartment. It takes place beneath his favourite delicatessen, in a basement with golden-wood benches and white tiled worktops and copper pans hanging from the ceilings. He strives for contentment. Waking up happy every day is an impossibility. Waking up okay most days is enough.

Halfway through February, his parents come to visit. Usually it’s just his mum and a sister or two, so his dad coming as well makes it feel like a special occasion. He takes a week off writing, and buys five different New York guidebooks so he can plan some fun trips for the three of them. They can get the ferry to Ellis Island, they can stock up on toys for Doniya’s kids at FAO Schwarz, they can go and see a show on Broadway – _The Lion King_ maybe, because they used to watch it over and over on video when he was little. He makes lists and lists and in the end none of them come true. They go to an art gallery on the first day and out for dinner that night, and then as they sleep, a snowstorm rolls in and the city is blanketed in deep white. When he wakes up, the streets are silent and the light feels holy. For millions of New Yorkers, work is cancelled, but others trudge through the snow wrapped up in puffy coats, layers of material, sensible boots on their feet. In London the whole city would be at a standstill but New York is grinding onwards. He and his dad make a dash to the convenience store for milk and a bag of apples and a packet of peanut butter cups for his mum, slip-sliding on the snow; he almost falls on his arse until his dad catches him by the arm and says “Steady there!” which somehow miraculously works to keep him upright. Zayn feels like he’s five years old again, walking to the corner shop with his hand in his dad’s, feeling like nothing in the world could hurt him.

When they get home, his mum has worked out how to turn the fire on and she’s making a start on butter chicken. “Do you have any board games?” she calls from the kitchen, and he does, so they spend three days in his apartment, hidden away from the cold and the snow and the slippery roads, eating and watching films and playing games. On the first day they make intermittent trips outside to throw snowballs but on the second day it turns icy and considerably less fun. Zayn doesn’t mind. He doesn’t remember another time when he spent days on end with just the two of them. He feels lucky and special and loved, and when the snow melts he finds himself almost disappointed. 

The week isn’t over though. They go to the top of the Empire State Building and his mum refuses to go near the edge and almost has a heart attack when his dad pretends to lose his balance. His mum’s got something fixed in her head about having brunch with ‘bottomless mimosas’ because she’s been watching too much Sex And The City. “It’s just Buck’s fizz,” she pronounces after two sips, looking disappointedly at her glass, and his dad mutters, “Told you so,” into his pancakes. Zayn orders a bottle of good champagne, which puts everyone into a much better mood until they all get hangovers halfway through the afternoon when they’re doing a private tour of the American Museum of Natural History and his dad has to have a sit down in the middle of the Butterfly Conservatory. Time passes far too quickly, but he wants to make the most of every moment instead of beginning to miss them when they’re still there. He makes dinner for them on their last evening while his mum does their packing and talks excitedly about all the gifts she bought for everyone from Bloomingdales and his dad pretends to listen to her. He makes a Thai recipe, curried noodles, mostly to demonstrate that he can cook recipes that his mum didn’t teach him, and they make happily surprised noises as they eat. Afterwards, the three of them watch _The Godfather_ before his mum goes off to have a shower before she goes to bed. 

Across the living room, his dad stretches out and smiles across at him. “Bet you can’t wait to have your flat to yourself again.”

Zayn nods, even though it isn’t really true. But if he doesn’t agree then there’s a good chance they’ll get worried about leaving him, and that would be horrible. There isn’t much that feels worse than making his mum and dad worry. “I’ll miss you though,” he says, lighter than he actually feels.

“No thoughts on when you might move back to England?”

Zayn shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know. No plans yet. You’ll be the first ones I tell, if I decide to come back.”

His dad covers up his disappointment well, but Zayn’s gratified by the slight flicker that passes over his face. “But we’ll see you soon?”

“Of course,” Zayn says with more confidence than he feels.

His dad nods, although Zayn can tell he isn’t quite convinced. “You seem happier now though.”

Zayn pauses. He doesn’t know how to answer that. Sometimes he feels as though he’s been gutted like a fish, but maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. Feeling like shit is kind of cathartic, and he loves that he’s being creative. Without that he doesn’t know who exactly he is, although his therapist has told him that no matter who you are and what you do, you shouldn’t define yourself by any one thing. Translation: Zayn Malik, no matter how interestingly artistic you think you are, you still need to take your medication and vitamins every day and drink plenty of water, so that the rest of your life doesn’t fall apart. Tentatively he says, “I think I am.”

“Good. Good.” His dad clears his throat. Zayn can tell that whatever he’s about to say next, he’s picking his words carefully, and it makes him oddly apprehensive. Finally: “And is there – anyone special in your life?”

Just that? Zayn breathes out a laugh. “No, Dad. No girlfriend at the moment.”

“I don’t just mean girlfriends, Zayn.” His dad’s looking at a patch of wall just past Zayn’s ear, which is good because it means that at least Zayn isn’t the only one finding this moment excruciatingly embarrassing. He can feel his right armpit beginning to sweat. Why just the one? Nothing in his life makes any sense, not even his sweat glands. “I want you to know you can be honest with me about everything,” his dad says finally. “I know that if you want to talk about the way you feel and that sort of thing, you usually go to your mum, but I’m not stupid, I can see that you’ve not always been happy, and I would never want you to be unhappy because you’re afraid to say something to me, or to be open with me. I love every bit of you – you do know that, don’t you?”

Zayn thinks he did know that, deep down, but hearing it said aloud still feels good. “I know,” he says, trying hard to keep his voice steady. He feels like he might cry. “I love you too.” He takes a breath. “I don’t know. I might come home with a girlfriend next. But it’d be okay if I came home with a boyfriend, wouldn’t it?” His family is fine with gay people: his auntie and her girlfriend, the guy who cuts his dad’s hair, the lad who works with Doniya at the salon who’s got the most perfect eyebrows Zayn’s ever seen. His mum knows, without him ever having said anything to her, and his sisters know, mostly; but he’s never been sure about his dad. When there’s a possibility of ending up with a girl, it’s never really seemed to be worth the uproar. But more and more it seems so stupid to lock away part of himself – because it matters, it _does_. Even aside from the fact that there are probably people out there who need to hear about a bloke from a working class Muslim family who is still loved and happy after being open about his sexuality, he thinks that he probably deserves to feel free. 

His dad’s nose crinkles as he smiles. “Of course it would. Try and get a boyfriend who’s better at football than you, maybe? I’ve seen Doniya’s kids kicking your arse when you’re playing in the garden. You deserve someone better on your team.”

“First of all,” Zayn says, “that’s rude. Second of all…” He thinks of Harry and his uncoordinated limbs: whatever they had is over, probably, but it still makes him smile. “Fat chance of that. Third of all, Gigi was a lot better at football than me, so you’re actually being a massive sexist, Dad.”

His dad holds his hands up. “I’ve still got a lot to learn, what can I say?”

Zayn finds himself laughing. He feels as though a big weight has been lifted off him, which is odd considering he never knew it was there. At the back of his mind he always knew that his dad would love him no matter who he went out with, but having it out in the open is doing him a world of good. In the past, he has sought out girls to date and fall in love with, and he has sought out men to sleep with, and that probably doesn’t say anything good about the way he has viewed relationships. Maybe part of the heaviness he feels sometimes is keeping himself under lock and key, and shutting off possibilities because they’d make his life harder. Maybe they wouldn’t make his life harder after all. Maybe he should give it a go. 

He gets up off his chair and goes over to sit next to his dad, right next to him, leaning into his side and putting his head on his shoulder just like he used to do when he was little. His dad stretches out an arm over his shoulders and kisses the side of his head in a way that makes Zayn feel like he’s being allowed to stay up late to watch Top Of The Pops on that old tiny TV they used to have. The aerial was fucked: once at the end of a football match the picture cut out so much that his dad gave him 50p to stand behind the screen and hold the aerial up high so he could see the final score. His TV here is more like a cinema screen. Life is so weird. “Should we put on another film?” he asks.

“Your mum will kill us,” his dad says. “But yeah. Let’s put on another film.”

Zayn scrolls through the options until he finds the Bollywood section. Something easy, something funny, something sweet… “Do you think,” his dad says, sounding faraway, “that if there had been more films out there that you’d been able to relate to when you were younger, that you’d feel more comfortable with yourself now?”

“I mean, I’m not uncomfortable with myself,” Zayn says, but he sees his point. “Probably,” he concedes, before choosing a film. It’s a recent release, and probably pretty shit, but that doesn’t seem to matter much.

The credits come on. “I wish we’d made more of an effort,” his dad says. “We just didn’t realise – I suppose it’s stupid to make assumptions—” 

“It’s okay,” Zayn says. “Pretty much every parent makes those assumptions.”

“But maybe you’d be happier. Maybe you wouldn’t – you know, the anxiety – maybe that wouldn’t… maybe it’s connected.”

Maybe it is. Zayn doesn’t know how to unpack it. Maybe he was born with anxiety and the depression that sometimes comes alongside it, maybe being famous at a young age exacerbated it, maybe being half-afraid of part of himself made it worse. Maybe if he was straight and living on a council estate he’d still find it hard to get out of bed some days. It’s impossible to know. The only thing that really seems to matter is that most days, he’s okay, and the days that he isn’t okay, he likes himself a lot more than he used to. It’s progress, of a sort. “I don’t know, Dad. But I’m here now, and I’m all right. And you’re here and you’re all right. That’s all we can ask for really, isn’t it?”

His dad squeezes his shoulder. “You’re right. It is.”

*

After his parents go home, he has to concede that actually having his apartment to himself again isn’t so bad after all. He goes to the studio after the car picks them up to take them to the airport, and by the time he gets home again the cleaners have been. The sheets have been stripped off the bed in the spare room and the sofa cushions have been plumped up, and nothing smells like his mum’s perfume any more. After a few minutes of feeling lost, he makes himself a sandwich and tells Dobby what a handsome young man he is, and feels better again. His next album is coming on, slowly but surely, and spring is almost here. Life is sweet. 

He carries on going to his cooking class. He learns how to make real pasta and choux pastry and how to chop vegetables fast without taking off his fingertips. Their teacher, Michel, is around forty: he has salt-and-pepper hair and a good-humoured mouth, and whenever he stands by Zayn’s workbench to see how he’s getting on, he smells so good that Zayn feels dizzy and almost always forgets what he’s supposed to be doing. The people in his class turn into almost-friends. He sits between a recently married couple who keep trying to finish each other’s sentences and getting them wrong, and a woman called Sandy, who wears wild earrings and who signed up for the classes after her husband died. She has lived in the same apartment since 1976 and she owns three cats and it takes her almost five minutes to take off all her rings before she starts to knead dough. She doesn’t know anything about singers, and she doesn’t care to, which is refreshing. When he shows her a picture of Dobby she goes silent for the first time since he met her and then she says, “Honey, he looks like a shaved rat.” Zayn’s so busy laughing that he doesn’t even mind the insult. 

The album gets itself finished. It’s one of the quickest records that Zayn has ever put together: the production is a little more pared back than usual, but he likes the way the beats sound. He takes in a box of profiteroles that he made during choux pastry week at his cooking class and shares them around. Everyone looks pleasantly surprised and the guy on reception says, “Holy shit, Zee. These are lighter than air,” before taking another one. 

He starts to think of concepts for the roll-out of the album. He’s on an independent label now, which he likes because it means that he has as much control as he wants over what he puts out, so he feels less nervous about feeling as though someone else’s vision will be used to represent his music. He considers a graffiti-style font but when they try it, it looks juvenile and out of place. He comes up with different ideas: the New York skyline, his hands – “It could work,” he tells Sandy, as she tuts like it’s the worst idea she’s ever heard – or maybe his childhood drawings, his childhood house even. An empty street, a lamp post at night. Rain. Hampstead Heath. A mouth against his. The songs feel quieter this time: it’s hard to find the right photo. 

At his cooking class, he learns how to descale a fish, and how to cook paella, and how to make vegan chocolate mousse. After the vegan chocolate mousse class Sandy sighs heavily and shakes her head before tipping her mousse into the bin. “What the fuck is the point in living like that?” she asks afterwards, as he accompanies her to the delicatessen upstairs and she inspects the cheese counter. 

“I mean, the animals,” Zayn says. It’s something he tries not to think too hard about, because he loves animals but he also loves milkshakes and fried chicken and leather jackets.

“The animals, the animals,” Sandy agrees disconsolately. “But I want my chocolate to taste like chocolate.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything about how milk probably waters down the ferocity of a cocoa bean, because life feels too short to have that conversation. Instead he says, “Fair play, Sandy.”

“You want coffee at my place? Don’t worry, I’m not going to jump you.” Her cackle is both warming and alarming. 

Her place turns out to be a five-minute walk up the street. She walks slowly, like maybe she should have a walking stick but she hasn’t quite admitted to herself that it’s necessary just yet. He paces beside her, slowing himself down so she doesn’t feel as though she needs to speed up, carrying her delicatessen bag of cheese and salami and fancy cookies over his arm. Her apartment is a walk-up, three flights of stairs: he doesn’t see how much longer she’ll be able to manage the steps, but he doesn’t say anything to her. If they’re still friends after a while, it might turn into an issue that he can help her with, but right now it doesn’t seem necessary. She hasn’t mentioned having any children who can take care of her, although she seems like the sort of person who probably has a lot of friends. Her scarves are wildly coloured and her hair is a perfect pink-tinged pixie cut: she looks as though she probably socialises a lot. Being friends with people is a lot of responsibility, although he’s lucky that he can throw money wherever he likes. He could install a stairlift for her. He could do anything.

At the top, she’s out of breath. “Don’t ever smoke,” she tells him as she opens her apartment door, and he smiles a bit and says, “I won’t.” Inside, the walls are painted turquoise and there are ornaments and photo frames on every single surface. The rugs on the floor are beautiful and well-used, and the sofa looks as though he could quite happily sink into it. 

He sets the delicatessen bag on her kitchen worktop as she waves at a metal contraption in the corner. “Impressive, huh?”

It looks kind of steam-punk. When she starts to froth milk with a metal nozzle, he figures out that it’s her coffee machine. It looks big enough to power a decent-sized Starbucks. “Sit _down_ , honey,” she tells him, and obediently he does so, moving through from the kitchen into the living room. The wall behind the sofa is patterned with photo frames, gilt and silver and glass, some unevenly crammed in there. For some reason, they’re almost all of men – not old men, mostly young men, many younger than him. Some with old-fashioned handlebar moustaches, some with their arms looped around other young men’s shoulders, some in tight bathing trunks that Zayn would rather die than wear in public. It kind of makes him jealous though, that easy confidence, that sun-kissed skin. A boy holding a puppy – and there’s a girl, with big soulful eyes and a cloud of dark hair – and two gorgeous drag queens caught mid-laugh, and a lad on a beach, his chest bare and gleaming and his smile hesitant and shy, his hair a golden swoop over his forehead. 

There’s a noise from behind him, and he turns before rushing to help Sandy with the coffee cups. They’re mismatching, different shades of floral; he doesn’t remember the last time he drank from anything so delicate. They sit together on the sofa and she says, “You were looking at my boys, huh?”

“Your boys?” He frowns.

“Well, technically I guess that one’s my boy.” She gestures at a photo frame on a side table. Clearly his face must be asking her some kind of question because she says, “You can look at him if you want, hon.”

He takes the photo frame. He can see some resemblance between the boy in the picture and Sandy: the heavy-lidded eyes, the generous mouths. The boy can’t be much older than twenty-one or twenty-two. Dread is starting to creep over him. “What’s his name?”

“He was called Joe – short for Joseph. We named him after my father. He died in ’83 – Joey, not my dad, who was long gone by then.” She sets the photo frame back on the table and reaches for her coffee. “He was a good boy.”

Zayn doesn’t know what he should say, if he should say that he’s sorry for her loss – but it was so long ago, over forty years – and she doesn’t look as though she’s devastated and broken, although he knows that some part of her must be – or if he should just make some sort of awkward noise and attempt to move the conversation forward. Instead he settles for: “He has lovely eyes. The same as yours.”

She smiles, so clearly he didn’t mess up too badly. “He was a good-looking boy. He was one of the first ones who died. He lost a little weight and he had some stomach problems and then the first cold day in November, he was holding a pair of gloves and he absolutely could not figure out how to get them on his hands. He left us just after New Year.” She spreads her hands palm-up, like she’s saying, _What can you do?_

Zayn’s throat is tight. He’s pretty sure she means AIDS, which is something that he has carefully tried to never think about. He uses condoms almost all the time and he gets tested regularly, which he hopes is enough. He doesn’t know much about it. He knows it decimated the gay community back in the eighties. He knows that politicians never gave it enough funding because of who died from it – gay men and drug addicts and ethnic minorities, for a while, before it crept into the straight white population and people finally started to give a fuck. “Shit,” he manages to get out. “Who are the others?”

She glances over her shoulder at the photos on the walls. “They’re the other kids I took care of. Me and Bill – that’s Joey’s father – we were the only mom and dad in the hospital. Joey still lived with us, you see. He was studying at NYU. He came out to us and we were fine with it. We saw that he was happy so we were happy too, and I had worked in the theatre, you know, so I understood that he’d be able to lead a good life. And then he got sick. Some of the time Bill stayed with Joey, and I dropped in on the others. Nurses left food trays outside rooms, even if the boys in there couldn’t stand up to bring it inside for themselves. Kids were looking after their friends because there were no families, kids who knew they were going to be the next ones who died. Most of them were from out of town. A lot of moms wouldn’t come and visit even when their kids were near the end. And these kids needed a mom in the room. And then I needed something after Joey died. I would go into the hospital every day and hold hands.” She looks tired. “Let me tell you, I arranged a lot of cremations during that time. They wanted to be remembered how they were, not how they died, so they gave me all of these pictures. I helped clean out their apartments too, otherwise everything would have been burned by their families.” She gestures at the photos: pictures of health, smiles, joy. Zayn looks closer at that blond boy on the beach and sees a smear underneath his chin. A bruise, maybe. Probably not. His stomach feels strange. Sandy sighs a little. “A lot of you boys now – you don’t know the scale of it. Everything that was lost.”

“Wait.” Zayn can’t stop himself. “So you think I’m—”

Her eyes widen. “You’re not?”

“No, I…” He swallows and reaches for his coffee. “I am. I mean, I’m bisexual.” He hasn’t said that word aloud about himself before. It feels more comfortable than he’d expected.

“Oh my gosh.” She reaches out to grip his forearm, her face a picture of relief mingled with shock. “I thought, oh my God, after all this time, my radar failed me.”

He grins at her. “Don’t worry. I mean, not everyone knows, but yeah.”

“It’s hard.” She looks around at her photos. “The weight of your community’s history on your shoulders.”

“I’m actually…” He winces a little. “I wouldn’t really call myself part of the community.”

Minutely, her eyebrows rise. “No?”

“It’s difficult.” He feels defensive. “I mean, my parents know. But the pressure from my fans, all these people online, oh my God. Sometimes I don’t want them to know everything about me. And they already say so much stuff – all this racist crap, all this Islamophobic stuff. Adding something else to that is just…” He lets out a breath. “It feels like so much, and I’m like, why should I go through that if I don’t have to? I might marry a girl one day and then I’ll have gone through all that abuse for nothing.”

She looks thoughtful and then she nods. “That is a tough situation, honey.” 

_Probably not as tough as the situation that everyone on your wall was in_ , he adds mentally. But his therapist has told him that his problems are his problems: he can’t go around feeling guilty that he doesn’t feel happy all the time just because other people have it worse than he does. He’s never really thought of himself as being part of a larger collective, part of a community, part of history in that way. Religiously, ethnically, of course. But in terms of whatever his sexuality is, queer, bisexual, whatever, he’s donated money to charities that help trans youth, the Terrence Higgins Trust, Stonewall, but honestly he donates money to a lot of different charities and those ones didn’t really stand out in his mind. The idea of being part of something bigger than himself feels reassuring. Wrapping himself in a rainbow flag the way that Harry does. Being part of a pride parade. These are things that are possible: these are things that he could do. For an evening with Harry, he was willing to entertain the thought of having a boyfriend. He could be out. He could be _out_. He could be free. Part of him feels as though a fraction of the anxiety and tension that has dogged him through the years would finally be released. 

When Harry came out, Zayn felt about a thousand different emotions. Very few of them were positive. Thinking back, Harry had been coming out in little ways for years before it officially happened: refusing to define his sexuality in interviews, writing lyrics that could be interpreted in certain ways. Zayn remembers seeing photos of him running up and down at his solo shows during that first tour with rainbow flags flapping from his shoulders like capes, like he was Captain Pride. Zayn felt like his mortal enemy, Doctor Self-Doubt And Denial. He stared at the pictures with an increasingly sick feeling in his stomach, his insides flopping over each other like he’d eaten a bad kebab after a night out and he was in imminent danger of shattering some porcelain. At that point, the concept of going onstage at all had made his whole body twist up in sudden pain and panic, and there was Harry: he hated him for being a showman, for being so comfortable, for being able to please his fans in that way, for making millions for his family through touring, for making his label happy, for making it look effortless, for making everyone else look bad in comparison. Niall not showy enough, Liam trying too hard, Louis not talented enough – and Zayn had felt like a dark abyss, like Voldemort being lifted out of the cauldron at the end of _Goblet of Fire_ , incompetent and cloaked in a dark, angry mist, and completely useless.

Since then things have changed, obviously. Being onstage feels more natural again. The fear that made his guts churn has started to fade away and the nerves he feels before performing are normal and easy to cope with. A little fear is a good thing, but a lot of fear made it hard for him to live his life and do his job. Harry always seemed so devoid of that fear: he came out of the closet slowly but with absolute certainty, one foot in front of the other. Here a song with masculine pronouns, there a pride flag on his Instagram feed. A refusal to deny being bisexual, leaning into the side of a man when he was photographed coming out of a party, and finally in a Sunday newspaper magazine, more specific words: _I’m not going to deny who I am for anyone. I love who I love regardless of gender. Yes, I’ve been with men and women. And with people who didn’t define themselves as either a man or a woman. You can call it what you like. I just call it being me._

Zayn remembers reading those words over and over. Touching them with his fingertips, the screen of his iPad smudging with his clammy fingerprints. _I just call it being me_. He felt his cheeks burning, as if people would somehow know that he was one of the men that Harry had been with. He read it again and wondered how Harry could bear for people to know such intimate details about him, to be so vulnerable in front of the entire world. He recognises now that maybe that wasn’t such a healthy way to think. That vulnerability is strength. That intimacy is bravery. That being yourself unashamedly is the most freeing thing in the world.

He takes a breath. “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” he tells Sandy, trying not to frown at her in case she thinks he’s upset. He isn’t upset exactly, although the weight on his shoulders feels as though it’s shifted. He feels a new sense of responsibility for this community that he could be part of, a need to find out about its history, about his new people. There are people who suffered and paved the way so that he could love who he wants to love in public. There are people who fought for him. He could fight for people in the future simply by being open and honest. The new weight isn’t a bad thing, though: it could never be as uncomfortable as hiding himself has been. 

*

He warns people before the interview comes out. He calls his mum, who cries and tells him he’s doing the right thing. He gets a steady flurry of messages from family members after that, all supportive because his family is mostly incredible. He lets Gigi know, because she’ll get asked about it and they’ve always played the supportive ex role with each other, and she sends him a row of rainbow emojis. He texts the boys – Liam sends a long and incorrectly spelled message about how proud and delighted he is, Louis is sincere and heartfelt, and when Zayn gets home that day he finds a bouquet of sunflowers from Niall in his living room. Everyone he works with is varying degrees of supportive – musically, everyone seems to sort of know already, and his publicists seem to think it’s a good move to promote his new album. 

In the shoot accompanying the article, he’s wearing a plain white t-shirt with a tiny rainbow on the pocket, and his hair is falling over his forehead. He’s smiling off to the side. There is no tension in his face, and his t-shirt is riding up a little so that his _Might As Well_ tattoo is just about visible. The photos haven’t been touched up, by his request, so the lines around his eyes look deeper than they usually do in pictures, like he’s smiling into the sun. There are a couple of silver flecks highlighted in his beard and at his temples, and although he feels like maybe he should be freaked out by that, he isn’t. Right now ageing doesn’t seem like a bad thing, although when he said that to Sandy she said, “That’s because you’re still so young that you don’t know shit,” with an affectionate smile. The interview is pretty basic: he talks about his new album, about his latest fashion campaigns, and mentions that most of his album is about the same man because oh yeah, he’s bisexual, and what of it? The outlet he chooses is up-and-coming, full of journalists who are young and diverse. They are careful with his quotes, and full of integrity, and clearly delighted that he chose them for the scoop. He hopes that it helps them somewhere down the line and sends them boxes of donuts and cases of beer and promises to work with them again. They’re his community now. They watch out for each other.

Harry is the last to text him back. He says _I don’t have the words to tell you how happy I am for you, and how proud I am to be part of your story. Love you always. H._

*

The fact that his life doesn’t change very much feels, in itself, remarkable. He puts the finishing touches on his album, takes one song off and puts another on there, and changes his mind and swaps them back again. In the end he chooses a photo that Harry took of him for the cover: it’s still on his phone from months ago, from when they got home from their date. Harry said his name, and he looked up, and Harry snapped a picture. Aesthetically, it’s a good photo. The light is hitting his face so his cheekbones look more carved out than they actually are, which he appreciates. But more than that, it’s his expression. He looks happy, his eyes soft and his lips curved into an almost-smile. “You look like the Mona Lisa,” Megan says, and Zayn says, “What?” and then “Thanks, I s’pose,” because sometimes asking people to explain their various weirdnesses is simply not worth it.

Work amps up, and he spends a lot of time sitting through meetings and designing merch and finalising tour dates and participating in photo shoots. He crouches on Sandy’s couch in his socked feet so that Megan can take a picture of him surrounded by all the photos on Sandy’s wall. _To all who went before and paved the way for me to be brave_ , he captions it on Instagram, and five minutes later Harry likes it. Sandy brings them a plate of madeleines that she made in their cooking class, and Zayn and Megan turn off their phones so the three of them can squash together on the couch and watch _Bringing Up Baby_ on Sandy’s tiny TV. 

His work-life balance has always been important to him, and so he makes sure that he retains it as much as possible. He pulls a hat down over his forehead and goes walking in Central Park as often as he can; he gets really into Agatha Christie novels and tells himself he’d be an excellent detective even though he can never guess the plot; and he continues to go to his cooking classes. Sandy still goes, but the married couple do not. It’s the way of the world. Secretly, Zayn is pleased that he wasn’t the one who left first.

One night they all go out for drinks after class, to a bar a few doors down, and crowd around a table there. Zayn finds himself wedged between Sandy and Michel, who smiles down at him and offers to buy him a drink. Sandy widens her eyes meaningfully and then laughs too loudly. Like Jim Halpert, Zayn is pretty much the master of leaving social occasions early, but this time he doesn’t. He and Michel are the last ones left at the end of the night, drinking gently warming white wine as slowly as possible – Zayn assumes that it’s so they don’t have an excuse to leave, although it could just be because it’s extremely bad wine and hard to swallow down. Around them, the barkeeper noisily stacks chairs on tables and huffs with irritation, and Michel says wryly, “I guess we must go?” 

They linger outside. Michel lights a cigarette and Zayn feels jealousy unfurling inside him as he watches him smoke: the curve of his mouth, the way he narrows his eyes against the smoke. The cigarette burns by his side as he smiles down at Zayn. He’s tall and his teeth are white and even, and in their classes Zayn has watched his hands: the way he kneads dough, the gentleness with which he treats pastry. Want floods through him, heady and insistent. There are people around but he takes a step closer anyway, his face tilted in a way he hopes is flirty and challenging and not strange. Recognition flitters across Michel’s face and then – just like that – they’re kissing in public, on a street threaded with people walking by, underneath dark New York skies. His stubble prickles against Zayn’s chin and his tongue tastes like smoke, which isn’t completely pleasant. _Was this what it was like to kiss me,_ he wonders, and is distracted from the thought as Michel throws his cigarette to the ground and says, “Come to my apartment, okay?” 

“Okay,” Zayn says. He feels helpless with want. They take the subway and Michel holds his hand, knotting their fingers together and holding out their entwined hands as if to admire the way they look together. It isn’t bad: Michel’s long fingers, Zayn’s ink. He looks at Michel’s profile and is selfishly glad that he’s traditionally handsome. It’s the first time he’s held hands with another man in public – the second, maybe, after Harry on the walk to that pub, although that was only for a few minutes so he doesn’t feel like it counts – and he’s glad that people might admire them together. 

Michel’s apartment is small and scrupulously tidy. The air smells as though a candle was burning there earlier, and all his shoes are lined up neatly on a wooden rack beside the door. In his own apartment, all of Zayn’s are just piled into a tangled heap. They move down the hallway and Zayn glances into the kitchen, which is tiny; it’s fucked up that his own kitchen is about four times the size of one that belongs to an actual chef. When they reach the end of the hallway, which doesn’t take long, Michel stops him and kisses him, hard and hungry. Zayn feels his muscles turn into molten gold as he leans into it. How could he ever have laboured under the illusion that he’d be fine without kissing another man for the rest of his life? Michel’s broad chest, whatever spicy masculine fragrance he’s wearing: it’s intoxicating, all of it. He tangles a hand in Zayn’s hair and Zayn feels kisses across his jaw, down his neck. He tries to control his breathing so he doesn’t sound like a panting idiot, but it’s hard. He can feel himself being carried away, his eyes closing, the specificity of each of his senses merging into something more complete, sensing rather than thinking, the tight pull of fingers in his hair, a mouth against his – and then into the bedroom, falling backwards onto the bed, jeans around his knees, wriggling to get them off, Michel between his legs, skin on skin, all delicious heat and friction, pressing inside him as sparks fly; wine on his tongue, the muscles in his thighs burning, biting his lip so hard he can taste blood—

And the next morning, the air still and cool as Michel sleeps beside him. Zayn rolls onto his side and looks out of the window, through the crack between the curtains. The sky is grey, which is nothing new. He stretches out, feeling that delicious ache through his whole body. _I want to be with a man who wants me_ : the words pop into his head suddenly and he feels a sense of gaping loss. He turns his face back against Michel’s pillow and tells himself to fall back to sleep.

*

They date, sort of. It isn’t serious, because Zayn is pretty busy. The first single from his new album is about to drop, which means that he’s starting to do a little promotion. Phone interviews with radio stations, a shoot for British Vogue. They ask questions about how it felt to come out and he has to assemble answers more quickly than he’d like, because for some reason he felt as though once it was done it was done, so he isn’t prepared. He never got asked about how it felt to be straight. _It’s a relief_ , he says. _Yeah, all the boys knew before that first interview_. Of course they did, one of them first-hand, although of course he doesn’t add that part. _Yeah, I’m kind of seeing someone. No, he isn’t the reason I came out. Actually, the album’s about someone else. Right now I’m dating around. It’s fun_. He does a longer profile for Vanity Fair, which feels almost as clarifying as seeing his actual therapist. The interviewer is young and clever and earnest, with thick black hair piled up in a knot on the top of her head and freckles brushed across the ridges of her cheekbones and a slight lazy eye that he finds incredibly endearing. They hang out for the better part of a day: they go to an arcade and he beats her at almost every game, and then he takes her to the studio, and then she comes over to his apartment and he makes spaghetti with scallops and clams. “Someone I’m kind of seeing taught me this recipe,” he confesses, feeling the apples of his cheeks heating up, and she just smiles a bit and waits for him to elaborate instead of jumping in with another question. “We’ve been friends for a while but we sort of cranked it up lately. So that’s fun.” His voice sounds oddly hollow.

She asks him thoughtful questions about his music, his processes, his inspirations. The culture shock when he moved from London to the US – “There was more of a culture shock when I moved from Bradford to London,” he says, honestly – and what it feels like to live a long way from his family. What he intends to do in the future and what he’s proudest of doing so far. That question is difficult. Other than ensuring the financial stability of his family and making charity donations, he isn’t sure if he’s proud of anything he’s done. When he was in long term relationships, they were something that made him proud – like he was saying, _Look, I can be loved_ , to the world. He’s proud of his music and the hard work that he put into it. He’s incredibly proud of his improved mental state and the even harder work that went into that. It’s a question that nags at him even after the interviewer’s long gone and he’s scrubbing the almost-burned bottom of a pan at his kitchen sink. He’s proud of coming out, he’s proud that he can support his family, he’s proud that his parents are happy for him. But there must be more to life. He doesn’t know how to find it, but he feels another pang for a family of his own: for a long-term partner, for kids. He doesn’t know if he’d be a good dad, but he’d try so hard. He’d do his absolute best.

Michel comes over later that night. Dobby hisses at him and goes to hide behind the sofa, clawing his way up beneath the cover so it looks like there’s a seething lumpy parasite in there. “He’s a good boy usually,” Zayn says. Michel looks unconvinced.

They have sex, like they usually do. Michel kisses him a couple of times before falling asleep, but Zayn isn’t tired yet. He rolls quietly out of bed and goes into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He can smell Michel’s sweat on his own skin, which is hot and disgusting at the same time. He thinks he could like him, but he isn’t sure that Michel has ever really made him laugh. That’s probably an important thing in a relationship. Is there any point in sleeping with someone who he doesn’t want a future with? How long does it take to work out whether or not you want a future with someone? He visualises himself in the future, five years, eight years down the line. A wedding ring on his left hand. A toddler, refusing to eat her breakfast – it’s a girl toddler who looks like Doniya’s oldest daughter did when she was little, a cute little girl called Amira maybe, her hair in curly dark bunches, Peppa Pig on her t-shirt. Chucking her cereal on the kitchen floor instead of eating it, and giggling about it like it’s funny, chewing the middle of her toast and leaving the crusts, suddenly deciding she hates orange juice after months of drinking it perfectly happily. A daughter, not necessarily a daughter who looks like him, but a daughter nonetheless. Or a son, curled up on the sofa beside him, big eager eyes on the TV, _Cars_ or _Coco_ or something on there, all long dark lashes and slightly-open mouth, fingers curled around a teddy or a favourite blanket, the warmth of his body so trusting. Whenever Zayn has held a baby in the past, no matter whose baby it was, he always knew that no matter what, he would die for that baby. He would shield it with his body, he would protect it with his life. He can’t even begin to imagine how devastating and crushing it must be to be a parent, the weight and extent of that love. He wants it. He wants to know himself in that way. 

He thinks of that mischievous daughter, that sweet son, and tries to slot Michel into those scenes – on his other side on the sofa, cheerfully making coffee in that kitchen – and finds that he can’t imagine it. Instead it all goes back to Harry: his living room, that sofa, that sunlit kitchen, Evie and Maisie curled up with Dobby in the corner. He can imagine living that life with Harry by his side. Harry’s easy laugh helping him untangle himself when he ties himself in knots. He can imagine walking on Hampstead Heath with Harry every Sunday morning, he can imagine taking him home to Bradford for Christmas, he can imagine the infinite gentleness of Harry with their family. God. The thought of it gives him a headache, pulsing behind his eyes. He rubs his forehead with the ball of his hand to massage it away. He doesn’t know how to get himself where he wants to be, but he feels as though at least now he knows his destination, the hardest part is done.


	5. FIVE.

FIVE.

Unsurprisingly, the thing with Michel doesn’t last for long. It tails off after a few weeks. “You were cute together!” Sandy says reprovingly, and Zayn shrugs and says “The heart wants what it wants.”

She stares at him hard for a moment, and then she says, “Is that Selena fucking Gomez?”

“What of it?” he says loftily, and she laughs and coughs and laughs some more. 

He misses cooking class for a few weeks because of work and holidays – he flies to LA to do some work with a producer there, and then he meets Doniya and her family in Hawaii for a completely undeserved – on his part – week on the beach. When he gets back to New York, Michel catches his arm before class and says, “Just so you know, I’m seeing someone.”

“That’s great!” Zayn says, with probably too much enthusiasm. Michel looks slightly wounded and so Zayn frowns and does his best to look thoughtful and brooding instead. 

The Vanity Fair profile comes out. The reaction is incredible, although it’s partly because some of the photos are of him wearing a crop top and a lot of eyeliner. A lot of fans tweet him to let him know that they are Officially Dead, which is a good thing even though it absolutely doesn’t sound that way to anyone who isn’t in the know. It really does feel as though a weight has been lifted off him – he dated a man for a few weeks and didn’t have to keep it quiet or worry or obsess over it. His fans still seem to care about him. Even if there are professional difficulties down the line, he’ll worry about that when he gets to them. On his way to the grocery store he sees two boys holding hands, in their late teens probably, one of them tipping his head back as the other one makes him laugh. Zayn smiles at them probably too brightly, out of love, and out of understanding, and a little out of jealousy – he could have been one of them, he could have been younger when he came out, he could have had more years.

But there are a lot of things he could have had. He could have had an English degree, and A-levels, and a real job. He could have been an English teacher, like he always intended. He could have been Mr Malik, carefully hiding his tattoos under long-sleeved shirts, second in the English department and helping out at every school musical, coming home to a nice boy or a nice girl, going to a chain Italian and a film for date night, going out on the lash in the next town over so he didn’t encounter any of his sixth formers at the pub. His mum is proud of him now, but she would have been equally proud of him then, without any of the awe and distance that has occasionally permeated their current relationship. 

But it’s worth it, for his parents’ paid-off mortgage and for the fact his family will never have to worry about money again. Every time a sliver of doubt creeps its way in, he remembers the house he grew up in and the house that his parents currently live in, and everything is worthwhile. There are plenty of things he could have had, but there are also plenty of things he has now that he wouldn’t give up for the world.

His invitation to Niall’s wedding is one of those things. He also gets invited to the stag weekend, although thankfully he can’t make it because it’s also his niece’s birthday party. He’d usually much rather go to a piss-up than a child’s birthday, because he is a normal and rational adult who doesn’t like hearing toddlers screech in his ears, but the stag weekend is three days long and he knows that although Niall’s friends are all nice, they’re also sturdy and ruddy-faced and interested in things that Zayn knows nothing about like golf and mountain climbing and Lewis Hamilton’s career. Three days is too long to spend with a bunch of people he doesn’t know in the middle of the countryside, although he gets in touch with the best man, one of Niall’s cousins, and insists on paying the bar bill. There are some things that make his anxiety flare up that he knows he needs to try harder to conquer, but at other times he’s learned that he needs to give himself a break. Suffering through a stag weekend that he really fucking doesn’t want to go to is one of those times.

And as it turns out, his niece’s birthday party is brilliant. All her little friends from nursery school are there, and there’s a bouncy castle and miniature cones of fish and chips and an arts and crafts table, where he obviously parks himself. There’s a stack of plain white t-shirts – “Primani, obviously,” Doniya says – and special markers that the kids can draw on them with, so that they can make their own party souvenir. Zayn makes a t-shirt for his niece Jazmin, the birthday girl – he draws a cartoon of her with a birthday crown on her head, with her wild dark hair in pigtails and a huge smile on her face, and then all the other kids want one too so he finds himself in demand, surrounded by enthusiastic children with cake-sticky hands and sweaty damp hair from all the bouncing and dancing they’ve been doing. One little boy hangs off his shoulder and when they all dash off to play musical statues a younger girl, maybe someone’s little sister, hangs back. She climbs onto his knee, sticking her thumb in her mouth and resting her head against his shoulder, and he can barely believe it. She’s got so much confidence that he’ll let her sit there, that he’ll be good to her, that he’ll look after her. He pats her little back through her party dress, his chest tightening. He wants to be a dad. He wants to be a dad so much. Maybe not right now, but he wants it one day. He wants that life.

After all the guests have left and Doniya has shepherded her kids home, Zayn goes back to his parents’ house with them. His head is ringing, and sitting in the back of the car with his dad driving makes him feel as though he’s about seven years old, even though he isn’t crammed in with all his sisters. He can hear his mum and dad murmuring to each other in the front seat and the sound of it is reassuring and warming. He has dinner with them and then the next morning he goes down to London early to prerecord a performance for Jools Holland’s show. He nails it first time around even though he’s pretty sure he has a sugar hangover from too much birthday cake and too many Capri Suns. 

After the performance, he goes back to his flat. He gave Megan the afternoon off so she’s probably halfway up the Millennium Wheel by now, and he can’t get in touch with Liam or Louis or Niall to hang out because of the stag party. He considers going to the cinema, but there isn’t anything that he wants to waste two hours on, and he considers gaming for a while but outside the sun is shining and it seems like a shame to miss out on it. It’s May now, and summer is almost here. Zayn hasn’t spent enough time in the UK when the weather was actually warm in the last few years and the city feels as though it’s full of infinite possibilities. Unfortunately, the possibilities are so infinite that he stumbles at the first hurdle when he can’t decide what on earth he should do and so he makes himself a cheese and pickle sandwich and peers out of his window at all the people scurrying around below instead. He knows he could ring Jawaad or Waliyha or Megan and they’d put down what they’re doing immediately to come and hang out with him, but they all think he’s happy and that he lives a full and interesting life and he doesn’t want to disabuse them of that notion—

And he is happy, anyway. Life is interesting. But there must be more than this. 

Harry is in Hampstead, probably – it’s hard to believe that he would have shown up at Niall’s stag party, so Zayn assumes he’s there. Zayn could go over to see him, but it’s impossible to think of a good enough reason for showing up, so he squashes that idea down quickly. Harry is still his biggest ‘might have been’, one of the most painful and beloved corners of his heart. He almost texts him but then he remembers Harry’s voice on New Year’s Day, his eyes squinted against the sun. _Closure_ , he said. Closure. Zayn swallows down a painful lump in his throat, and puts on Family Guy.

He’s only been watching TV for about five minutes when his phone rings, Liam’s name flashing up on the screen. What? He frowns at it for a moment before picking up. “Hello?” He sounds tentative, which is stupid, but he feels pretty tentative too. What if he’s about to get shouted at for not showing up to the stag party? His mind spirals. What if he gets shouted at, and disinvited from the wedding, and then he never talks to any of them again? He’d survive it, he’d survive anything, but he doesn’t want that to happen now that they’re all relatively good friends again.

“Zayn! Brilliant! I’m glad you’re there!” Liam sounds as peppy as ever, so he probably isn’t ringing to cut Zayn out of his life just yet. In the background Zayn hears Louis groan and say, “Can’t you be a bit fucking quieter, Payno?”

“Y’all right?” Zayn asks. “Did you have a good weekend?” 

“Fantastic,” Liam says. “As you can hear, Louis is very slightly hungover, But I’m having a bit of a personal disaster. We’re all due back to London tonight—”

“Okay,” Zayn says. He really isn’t sure how he fits into it at all.

“And I’ve had a bit of a custody fuck-up.” He sounds almost ashamed. “Bear’s been with his mum this week and I was supposed to pick him up today—”

“But aren’t you still in Shropshire?” Or Berkshire, or Cheshire, or wherever the fuck this cursed stag weekend took place.

“Right. So I was wondering if you could look after him for me, this afternoon? You said you were recording in London this morning, so I thought you might still be there. I know it’s a big ask, but Cheryl’s off to LA today and her mum’s in Newcastle, and her assistant’s going to LA with her, and my mum’s got a bastard of a cold so she can’t get down to London—”

He reels off more people. A babysitter’s on holiday, another babysitter’s fully booked. “It’s just for an afternoon,” he finishes. “Are you free, mate?”

Zayn clears his throat. “I mean, yeah, I’m free, but he doesn’t know me very well…”

“He said he liked you,” Liam says. “After we had lunch at Louis’s house. He said you had Iron Man on your socks and that you liked space almost as much as he does. He’s talked about you a lot since then.”

Zayn feels terribly and stupidly flattered. “Really?”

“Yeah. He thought you were cool, man. He’d be excited to see you.”

Zayn can’t help himself. “Well – I mean… yeah. All right. I’ll help out.”

“Yeah!” Liam cheers, so loudly that Zayn can hear Louis swearing at him on the other end of the line. And then Niall’s voice: “Is that Zayn? Are you talking to Zayn! Gimme—” Clearer now he says, “You all right, Zayn? I love you, Zayn!”

The phone crackles and then there’s Liam again. “Sorry, Niall grabbed it,” he says. “He’s still drunk from last night, I think.” A pause. “But he does love you. We all do. I think that much is true.”

*

Bear is nine and a couple of months, which means that although he doesn’t reach for Zayn’s hand when they cross the road, he does stand a bit closer to him and wait for his cue to cross. Five minutes after Zayn meets Cheryl’s assistant to retrieve him, being the sole babysitter of Liam’s son is already the most responsibility he’s ever had, and it’s terrifying. Another issue is that he doesn’t really know what to do with him. He hasn’t got a back garden and there’s essentially nothing to do in his flat other than play video games, and he’s afraid of somehow letting him play the wrong game and giving him nightmares and destroying his brain for life. He considers taking him to the park, but he doesn’t really know what parks locally are any good and which ones are full of kidnappers – hopefully none of them, but who knows – and he doesn’t really want to get recognised and for anyone to come up to him when he’s got Bear in tow. And so, with a great deal of relief, he texts Harry. Having a legitimate reason to do so feels incredible. Harry invites them over immediately and Zayn finds himself excited to see him, his big sunny smile, his lovely face, his floppy curly hair, to hear him talk and laugh, to spend time with him again.

They get a taxi over, a London black cab that Bear is fizzingly excited by. Harry’s gates are already open a crack so they crunch up the gravel driveway together. Bear goes first and the sight of his big Spiderman backpack on his skinny shoulders makes Zayn feel terribly protective of him. “Can I press the bell?” Bear asks when they get to the door, and Zayn nods. He’d forgotten that doing things like pressing bells and taking black cabs used to be exciting. Even when he started in the band, little things were more fun than they are now: pressing the buttons in a gleaming hotel lift, seeing what his airline meal was going to be, ripping a brand-new t-shirt out of its packaging. He needs to figure out if he can find that excitement and energy again some time. Even still, since he came out, he feels more of a buzz in his everyday life: he can be open about some things that he used to push down inside himself and try to ignore. On his flight over to the UK, the attendant was strikingly good-looking: broad-shouldered, chestnut-haired, with an aquiline nose and steely blue eyes. He looked at Zayn on and off through the flight and Zayn smiled once, openly inviting in a way that he hadn’t allowed himself to be in public before. The attendant smiled back before lifting a hand in faux regret to show him a wedding ring. Zayn frowned in exaggerated disappointment, and the flight attendant did too, and then they both got on with their lives. It was such a small and unimportant encounter, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the heady freedom of being open and truthful about himself.

Harry opens the door in a Hawaiian shirt and baggy white trousers. It’s the most disgusting outfit that Zayn’s ever seen, and he loves it. Somehow in the half-hour since Zayn texted him, Harry has managed to lay out an array of boardgames on one end of his big dining table. The other end is covered with newspaper and set with a couple of pads of paper and a brightly coloured box of paints. “We can do whatever you want, Bear,” Harry says with a grand arm gesture, and Bear looks like he can’t believe his eyes with joy. 

The French windows at the other end of the room are open and every time there’s a breeze the long white curtains by their sides billow gently. Maisie and Evie are curled almost on top of each other by the doors. Zayn can smell grass cuttings and, faintly, the scent of someone having a barbecue. The three of them settle down at the art end of the table and Zayn says, “I think we should all challenge ourselves to paint the best spaceships that we can.” 

“I’m going to win!” Bear says immediately, before sticking his brush into a pot of bright orange paint. He’s probably right. 

“I got out the paints that you bought before in Hampstead,” Harry says to him. “I hope that’s all right.”

“Of course it is,” Zayn says. “I’m glad.”

Harry smiles at him, the lines beside his eyes deepening. “I knew you’d say that. I’m happy you came over.”

“Do you think an alien would be purple?” Bear demands, looking at Zayn.

“Sure.” He feels gratified that Bear thinks he’s qualified to answer the question. “An alien can be whatever colour you want it to be.”

“Purple and blue,” Bear says, like it’s obvious. Maybe it is. Zayn was going to go for plain old green, but when he frowns thoughtfully at the rows of paint pots it feels as though sunshine yellow is calling his name.

*

They play football in the garden after that. Harry grabs Bear’s arm before he darts outside and covers his face and the back of his neck in sunscreen. “Good catch,” Zayn mutters, because he would never have thought of that, and Harry shrugs a shoulder and says, “Teamwork.” 

Harry sets up cones at the end of his back garden so that Bear can try to score goals against him. Zayn has the dark suspicion that Harry’s arse will be well and truly kicked. He sits in a deckchair in the sun and cheers shamelessly every time Bear gets a goal in. Bear does victory lap after victory lap as Harry doubles over and laughs helplessly, holding his side. “Stitch!” he says, out of breath, standing up straight again and making an exaggeratedly ugly face. His teeth stick out and his forehead’s furrowed and there’s a mud smear on his cheek where he wiped his hand five minutes ago. His Hawaiian shirt is clinging to his shoulders with sweat and he looks knackered but he picks Bear up anyway and whisks him into a piggy back and parades around the garden singing the Match of the Day theme tune. Zayn cheers and runs over to grab Bear off Harry’s back, spinning him round and round until they’re both laughing and dizzy and staggering on their way back inside.

They make burgers on the barbecue, inspired by the incredible smells wafting over from Harry’s neighbours. Bear gets ketchup all over his face and obligingly closes his eyes and presents his face to Zayn when he offers to help clean it off. “All sorted,” he says when he’s done a bit of mopping up with a bit of kitchen roll, and Bear grins and takes another bite from his burger. There’s somehow now miraculously ketchup near his eyebrow so Zayn makes an executive decision that it’s probably best to leave it until he’s finished eating. Afterwards they have bowls of ice cream covered liberally with sprinkles and lashings of Nutella in front of the TV. In the room next door, their paintings are almost dry, and Bear darts through so that he can add some extra touches with silver and gold pens that Harry has produced from a drawer somewhere. He draws bright stars all over the inky night sky that he painted earlier, and when he smiles his eyes wrinkle in the exact same way as Liam’s.

When Liam finally appears at the front door, they’re halfway through a game of Cluedo. Bear is starting to fade, yawning over the board. He was Professor Plum, and Harry was Miss Scarlett, and Zayn was Mrs Peacock because none of the others really appealed to him and a wealthy widow dripping in diamonds doesn’t seem like the worst aspiration in the world. Bear pouts and doesn’t want to leave, and so as a compromise Harry produces the results of the game from the centre envelope with a “Ta-da!” like he’s pulling a rabbit from a top hat. It was Professor Plum in the library with the lead piping, and Bear’s mood goes instantly from bad to brilliant when he finds out he’s a murderer. Children are strange. Zayn loves it.

Liam thanks them over and over again, and shows them his bruises from paintballing on the stag weekend, and from where Louis pushed him off a quad bike into a big muddy puddle. He seems to think it’s hilarious, although if Louis pushed Zayn into a muddy puddle Zayn would probably be forced to break both his arms. Apparently everyone had a wonderful time, and when Zayn says “He really didn’t mind that I didn’t go?” Liam just smiles and pats his arm and says, “He understands,” which is absolutely enough. Behind them, Harry says, “I suppose he was devastated that _I_ didn’t go,” and Liam says, “Not sure he noticed, mate.” Harry looks outraged, which is brilliant, and Liam winks at Zayn before shepherding Bear away into the night. “Thank you, Zayn! Thank you, Harry! I had a great time!” Bear calls over his shoulder, flapping his painting like a flag, and Zayn and Harry wave back at him like elderly spinster aunts. 

When they close the door behind him, Harry’s house feels oddly quiet. “That was a really good day,” Harry says, almost to himself, and closes his eyes for a moment as he leans against the wall. Then he opens them again and smiles over at Zayn. “I’m exhausted.”

“Me too.” Now he thinks about it, Zayn’s knackered too. A whole afternoon and evening of entertaining a child, of interacting with him and talking to him and taking care of him. It was one of the most tiring things ever, but it’s also one of the best days he’s had in a while.

Harry stifles a yawn and ambles his way through to the dining room, where he starts putting the Cluedo board and pieces away. At the other end of the table, Zayn tidies up the paints, puts them back into their box, sorts out the dirty brushes and glasses to be washed later. When they’re done in there, they move through to the kitchen, putting dirty plates and cutlery in the dishwasher, wiping down surfaces. When they cross each other’s paths in the middle of the kitchen Harry touches his side like he isn’t even thinking about it. When they’re done, Harry leans against the sideboard and says, “You can stay for the evening if you want?” It comes out like a question, probably more uncertain than he intended.

It’s already getting late, and Zayn could fall asleep where he’s standing, and he doesn’t want to leave. He misses this so much. He nods, and follows Harry through into the living room. It’s cooler now and when they sit together on the sofa Harry pulls a blanket over their legs. Zayn doesn’t particularly need the extra warmth, but he likes that it’s an excuse to move a couple of inches closer until he can feel Harry’s body heat against him. Harry turns the TV on, and then, so carefully casual that it’s obvious he’s thinking deeply about it, he stretches out an arm and places it over Zayn’s shoulders. It feels as though a floodgate has opened inside Zayn’s chest. He leans against him and rests his temple against Harry’s shoulder. They watch the second half of an old episode of Friends and as Ross and Rachel shout at each other Zayn turns his face so that he can inhale the scent of Harry’s shoulder before pressing a kiss to it. He can feel the warmth of his skin through his thin t-shirt. Harry shuffles minutely closer and Zayn turns back to the TV. Chandler wisecracks and Harry’s body shudders with laughter. This is so good. It feels so nice. He could stay here forever on this sofa, with this level of bone-deep weariness and satisfaction, beside this man who he cares so deeply about. If this was his happy ending, he’d be content with it for the rest of his life.

The night wears on and Zayn feels his eyelids drooping. The Friends marathon pumps on and Zayn realises that he’s watching it through mostly-closed eyelids. Beside him, Harry relaxes and his breath evens out. Zayn reaches for the remote control and mutes it. Sorry, Phoebe. Sorry, Joey. He should probably wake Harry up, he should ask him if he wants to go up to bed together, he should offer to get a cab home to his flat—

The choice is too difficult and so, instead, Zayn falls asleep with his cheek smushed against Harry’s shoulder. When he jerks awake hours later it’s because the cats are circling: Evie is perched on the coffee table making querulous noises, and Maisie is pacing back and forth. Through the gap in the curtains it looks as though the sun is just about starting to rise, which means it’s still early because it’s almost summer. “Oh God,” Harry says, his voice a croaky rumble that – if he’s completely honest – goes right to Zayn’s dick. They extricate themselves from the blanket and the sofa and Harry follows the cats into the kitchen. As Zayn stretches, he can hear Harry feeding them and talking to them, sweet nonsense as always. Then Harry’s back in the living room, sleepy-eyed and messy-haired. “Do you want to—” he begins.

“I could leave,” Zayn volunteers, mostly so that Harry will ask him to stay.

A pause, and then, softer: “Don’t. Come on.” 

He follows Harry upstairs. The air is warm and honeyed and golden in the bedroom, the sheets crisp and pale and criss-crossed with shafts of early morning sunlight. Most of the city outside is asleep. Harry crosses the room to open the window and Zayn hears birdsong, as mellifluous as running spring-water. Then Harry turns again and smiles, half-awkward, scratching the back of his neck, looking like that teenager from fifteen years ago again for just a split second. Zayn crosses the room to him and touches his cheek and kisses him, feeling Harry’s tiny intake of breath and then his body pressed against Zayn’s. Touching him and being with him is such a relief. _I want to be with a man who wants me._

 _I want you_ , Zayn tells him silently with his mouth and his hands. _I want specifically you_ , although he doesn’t know if Harry has heard, if he’s understood. The sheets billow with air and clean cotton beneath them as they move onto the bed. It feels like they’re about to fuck on a cloud. Harry settles between his legs and looks down intently into his eyes. He traces the tattoos on Zayn’s collarbone with his fingertips and then he touches his cheekbone, dragging the skin roughly, rubbing his thumb over Zayn’s bottom lip like he’s trying to work out whether he’s real.

“It’s not a dream,” Zayn tells him, soft and certain.

“I just wanted to make sure.” Harry’s smile is brief. 

“Well.” Zayn puts his arms up over Harry’s shoulders. “Sure now?”

Another smile, more sincere this time. “Yep.” And then there’s Harry’s mouth on his again, the weight of his body warm and reassuring. Zayn tangles their legs together and presses up towards him before flipping him over unceremoniously onto his back. “Oof,” Harry says, laughing a bit, and Zayn kisses the laugh off his mouth. They wriggle out of their clothes with a little less dignity than Zayn would appreciate, but it doesn’t matter: that’s all part and parcel of being with someone, being ugly at times with each other physically and emotionally and sticking around anyway. There’s nothing better than Harry’s bare skin, a blank canvas of warm skin waiting for Zayn to touch and to breathe in: the sparse soft hair on his chest, the silky smoothness of his nipples, the solidness of his muscles. Harry’s breath catches in his throat and Zayn looks up to see his eyes on him half-pleading.

When finally he presses into him, one of Harry’s ankles resting on his shoulder and the soft pale skin of the inside of his other thigh so exposed and gorgeous, it feels as though there’s something more certain about it, like there aren’t any questions being asked, like perhaps they’ll both stick around this time. Zayn hasn’t got anywhere else that he needs to be. Nowhere else that he’d rather be, either. He wants this to become more familiar to him, lazy early mornings, slow sex and faster fucks, every little noise that Harry makes, every little way that his muscles move. Right now they could go slow and make it meaningful but going fast seems like it would be more fun, and Harry’s asking for it too, gasping _Please_ , and _Fuck yeah_ , and grinning up at Zayn with sweaty hair stuck to his forehead and determined joy on his face, nose wrinkled and an arm stretching upward to hold onto his headboard.

He comes inside Harry and the whole time Harry holds onto him, their mouths pressed against each other’s but not quite kissing; then Harry pulls him down onto him and wraps his arms around him. Zayn turns his face and breathes in the scent of Harry’s neck and hair and kisses the soft skin beneath his ear. “Can I stay today?” he murmurs, and feels Harry nod.

*

They sleep until lunchtime, lazy and exultant, and then make lunch: fish finger sandwiches, Captain Birdseye from Harry’s freezer, with soft white bread and lots of butter and ketchup, and big mugs of strong tea on the side. Afterwards Harry finds sun-loungers in his garage and wipes dust and spider-webs and dead woodlice off them before setting them up in his back garden so they can lie and bake in the early summer sun. The sky is heaven, the sort of blue that doesn’t even seem as though it should be able to exist, the sort of blue that Zayn thinks is probably impossible to replicate no matter how good an artist you are. There are the dappled shadows of trees and occasional motorbike roars from the street on the front of the house. To their right, there’s a birdbath that Harry carefully filled earlier with a measuring jug of water from the kitchen sink, and blue jays are dipping in and out of it. Zayn borrows a pair of shorts and a battered Nick Hornby book and a pair of sunglasses that look so ridiculous on him that Harry can’t stop laughing and insists on taking a photo. Zayn pushes the sunglasses halfway down his nose and leers at him and Harry looks shamelessly delighted.

The football that Harry and Bear were playing with yesterday is still sitting on the grass and Harry gets up after a bit, starts kicking it around gently with bare toes. His shoulders are gleaming under the sun and sweat’s shining at the bottom of his spine and he looks ungainly and gangly as the football slips away from him and he almost trips over trying to get it back. Zayn goes back to his book and there’s a thump as Harry thwacks the ball against the fence, and then he does a little victory lap, bare feet in the bright green grass. “Goal!” he cheers, and Zayn finds himself laughing. Harry beams at him and then comes to sit gingerly on the edge of his sunlounger to kiss him. Zayn puts his book down so he can sit up properly and kiss him back. After a moment, his hand resting on Zayn’s shoulder, Harry says, “We did a good job yesterday.”

“By which you mean that Bear’s still alive?” Zayn asks.

Harry laughs again. “Pretty much, yeah. It was fun, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” Zayn strokes Harry’s hair back off his face and leans in to smudge a couple of kisses over his cheekbone. He feels a bit nervous, although he doesn’t know why.

“It made me think that I want something real,” Harry says. “I know that we have brilliant lives but sometimes it all seems sort of—”

“I know,” Zayn says. “Come on.” He wriggles up so that Harry can get onto the sunlounger too. He does, nudging one of his feet between Zayn’s and resting his shoulder on his. Harry takes his hand in both of his, which feels nice. “I had a boyfriend for a few weeks,” he says. “My first ever boyfriend.”

“Oh.” Harry’s still holding his hand. “That’s good.” He sounds cautious. “What was he like?”

“He was my cooking class teacher—”

Harry’s laughing. “Wait. One step back. You did cooking classes?”

God, there are so many things that they have to talk about. There are so many things that they’ve missed out on. There’s only been a few months since they talked properly to each other, and yet Zayn feels as though he has a million things to say. How it felt to come out, what it was like when his parents came to stay and a snowstorm blanketed them all inside, his new album and his new songs, what it was like to date Michel, his friendship with Sandy and the way that she showed him that there’s a whole other community out there that he could be part of. And smaller things too: the way he tried to put some trousers on Dobby and Dobby tore Zayn’s hand to shreds and then hid on top of a wardrobe for an entire day and hissed whenever Zayn tried to convince him to come down. Then he’d got out a can of tuna and Dobby had taken a running leap off the wardrobe to get to it and Zayn had dropped the tuna can by mistake, and long story short he’d had to buy a new carpet for that bedroom because of the lingering fishy smell. He wants to lend Harry the vintage eighties shirts that Sandy gave him, the ones that belonged to her son – they’re brightly coloured and gorgeous and whenever Zayn wears one he gets Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood stuck in his head. He has the new Ocean Vuong book and he thinks Harry would love it, and he wants to tell him that he read the Neruda collection from cover to cover, and he wants to see what Harry thought of his most recent song, and he wants to ask him about the rumours that he’s going to be in a Tom Stoppard play on the West End. He wants to ask him if Gemma’s baby has been born yet, and what he thinks about the new Frank Ocean album, and to see if he also thinks that Simon Cowell’s new chin is the funniest thing he’s ever seen. There’s the last few months to catch up, and then the ten years before that – and then even after they’re caught up, Zayn can’t really see them running out of things to say to each other. 

But still. For now, they only need today. He rests his head on Harry’s shoulder. “Yeah. I liked the idea of doing something practical. We learned how to make homemade pasta. I mean, it’s fucking pointless when you can just buy it but—”

“But it’s still cool,” Harry agrees. There’s a pause, and then he says, “And you went out with your teacher…?”

“Are you jealous?” Zayn sort of hopes he is.

“Well, you’re with me today, and you’d be with him if you wanted to be, so no,” Harry says, which is extremely sensible, and then he adds, “But yeah, I am a bit,” which is less sensible but which Zayn is pleased by anyway. “What was he like?”

“Tres French,” Zayn says, as Bradford as possible, _Trezz French_ , and Harry snorts out a laugh. “I mean, he was nice. Fit. Not someone I wanted to be with long term, there wasn’t enough of a spark. I think I just wanted to see what it’d be like to have come out and to go out with a bloke.”

“What did you think?”

“It was good. Not him, specifically, although like I said, he’s a nice guy. But I liked being open about things. And not feeling guilty because I was lying by omission.”

Harry nods a bit. “It feels really good when you’re not constantly freaking out in case someone takes a sneaky picture… what would you do if, right now, there was some helicopter circling over this house, trying to get pictures of us?”

“Don’t you have a restraining order for photographers around your house?”

Harry shoves him. “Use your imagination!”

Zayn thinks about it. That bright blue sky with a helicopter rattling through it, paps with long lenses and rent to pay and essentially no scruples at all. And here he is wedged in a sunlounger with Harry Styles, both nearly naked except for their shorts, legs tangled together, his head on Harry’s shoulder. What would people say if those photos were published? They have mostly separate fan bases these days, and some of them hate each other. He can’t imagine the scrutiny of dating Harry, who is arguably more famous than him and more followed. He’d get asked about it in every interview. He’d be known for it for his whole life, they both would. But all of a sudden Zayn doesn’t care in the slightest. He lifts his head and smiles at Harry. “I’d do this.” And then, slow but certain, he kisses him.

*

In the end Zayn ends up staying for a week and a half. His management and publicity teams are quietly pissed off, but that isn’t really a new feeling for him, so he doesn’t mind all that much. He does a little promo in London and signs off on everything that he can, and the rest of the time he spends, blissfully, with Harry. They both have things to do separately – they have meetings, lunches, and Harry goes out one evening alone with his friends when Zayn doesn’t particularly feel like being sociable. He makes himself beans on toast and has some of the raspberry cake they made the previous day and watches three hours of Ice Road Truckers with Maisie on his lap and Evie on the back of the sofa just by his head. He’s in bed when Harry gets back, half-drunk and giggly, stripping his clothes off and accidentally banging his knee in the dark with a quiet, sad whine. Zayn smiles upwards at the dark ceiling as Harry crawls into bed: they reach automatically for each other and Harry kisses the corner of his mouth and says, “Hello.”

“Did you have fun?” Zayn asks. Their noses are so close together that if it was light Harry’s face would be blurry and out of focus.

“Yeah, loads. Sorry to wake you up.”

“I don’t mind.” He really doesn’t. He was happy to have an evening to himself. He’s happy to have a night with Harry now that he’s home. He’s happy that he can have both. “Tell me about it in the morning.”

“All right.” Harry’s already half asleep, Zayn can tell it from his voice. Another kiss, this one squarely on the mouth. “Night, babe.”

“Good night, baby.” Zayn waits for a moment and then Harry rolls onto his other side, like he does most nights. And like most nights, Zayn wraps himself around him, arm over his middle, face pressed against his neck, Harry kept tight and safe inside the curve of Zayn’s own body. He feels Harry find his hand so that he can hold it, and then there’s a happy sigh, and then he feels himself drifting back towards sleep.

*

The weekend before Zayn is scheduled to go back to New York, Harry’s mum and sister make a visit. Harry tells him after breakfast in a calm voice as though it’s a perfectly normal thing to be saying, and then when Zayn stares at him silently for five seconds Harry sighs and says, “Don’t freak out.”

Zayn blinks at him. “I just don’t really understand what you’re saying? Do you want me to go back to my flat for the day?”

Harry pauses, and then he says, “Do you want to go back to your flat for the day?”

“Not really,” Zayn says. He can feel himself starting to get into a huff, which is pretty ridiculous but feels unavoidable. “I just think you’ve sprung this on me a bit.”

“Why is it such a big deal?” Harry asks, getting up and picking up their cereal bowls. “It’s just my mum and sister. You’ve met them a million times before.”

 _Yes, but that was before_ , Zayn wants to reply. That was before he left the band, when he hadn’t burnt every bridge between himself and Harry, when there hadn’t been ten years of silence. He’d barely even spoken to them then if he’s honest: he’d smiled and said hello and then sloped off, hoping they’d blame it on him being young and socially incompetent instead of awkward because he spent half his life having sex with Harry and the other half of his life playing house with Perrie. He drums his spoon on the table until Harry winces, and then he says, “How much have you told them?”

“Not much.” Harry’s gaze is so frustratingly steady. “I’ve told them that you’re staying here for a bit while you’re in the country.”

“Have you told them why I’m staying here?”

Harry clatters the bowls into the sink, and then he turns around and says gently, “Why _are_ you staying here?”

Zayn’s entire chest seizes up, as though someone has carefully and specifically inserted all his arteries into a vice and rapidly turned the handle. He doesn’t know the answer to that question. The only real answer is probably because he likes it there, because he likes Harry, and of course that isn’t something he can really say—

Or is it?

He steadies his nerves, and says, “Because I like you.”

Harry’s throat visibly contracts and a flicker of an expression that Zayn can’t quite make out runs over his face. He looks for that split second as though he’s about to start crying, and Zayn feels a bolt of fear. He gets to his feet and goes over to him and takes hold of his hand and says, “Hey. It’s okay. Harry? I don’t like you.”

Harry laughs, sounding choked up. “I like you too.”

“Good.” Relief, cold and pure. He leans against Harry’s shoulder and turns his head to kiss him on the side of the neck. 

“I just…” Harry sucks in a breath. “I don’t understand. What’s been our problem? Why haven’t we been able to…”

“I don’t know,” Zayn says honestly, and Harry rushes on: “Remember that book I gave you? Like, you didn’t even say thank you, and I thought—”

The relief is quickly followed by panic. Zayn jerks back and says, “Didn’t I? I’m sorry, I just—”

“And that book meant so much to me,” Harry says, the words coming out like a flood. “I remember writing, after you left, I wrote all this stuff and everything reminded me of you, and we hadn’t even been properly together, we’d only been sleeping together, and I was still writing all these stupid _songs_ about you – and I would quote to myself, _Éstos sean los últimos versos que yo lo escribe_ , which means—”

“These are the last verses I’ll write for him,” Zayn says. “I read it all, babe. Of course I did.”

“And they were never the last songs I wrote for you,” Harry says. “I could never forget you. You’re so annoying.”

“Thank you,” Zayn says.

There’s a moment then that feels lighter. Harry laughs, an upset bubble, and turns to kiss him quickly. His lips taste salty. “Your mum’s probably really cross with me,” Zayn says.

“Unfortunately, she still thinks you’re a nice young man,” Harry says. “I didn’t tell her any of the details. I think she always knew that I liked you.”

“Yeah. My mum too.” Zayn tickles his side gently.

Harry smiles reluctantly before pushing his hand away, his face furrowing into another frown. “And at Louis’s house, you just _left_ , and I was thinking: God, how can I be with someone when I keep thinking they might just walk out the door?”

Zayn scowls right back at him. “And I was thinking: how can I be with someone who isn’t on my side?”

“I am on your side,” Harry almost snaps, and Zayn stares at him until he wilts and admits, “Maybe I could have been more on your side.”

“You always said one thing to me and then something else to the others,” Zayn says. “Like, you did it over and over in the band and then you did it at Louis’s house as well, you’re such a sodding people pleaser that it felt like you cared more about that than about what I wanted, and—”

“Well, when we were in the band you had a girlfriend and then a fiancée,” Harry says. “It wasn’t like you were absolutely on my side.”

“As a bandmate,” Zayn says, and adds: “As a friend.”

Harry’s silent for a moment, his brow furrowed, and then he admits slowly: “I see your point. But you just fucked off – no, hang on…” Zayn’s opened his mouth, about to say how unhappy he was, how much it wasn’t working, and Harry says, “I know. You were right to leave. I’m not disputing that at all. I’m glad you went. I just wish you’d let me into what was going on in your head.”

That’s so much easier said than done. It feels like stepping right off a cliff, as though Zayn would be peeling off a layer of his skin and cracking his ribs right open. Knowing what the most emotionally healthy thing to do is has always been a bit of a challenge for him. He’s often gone for the easiest option without thinking about any other possibilities: ducked away from difficult conversations, deleted emails without reading them, closed text conversations without replying. Right now, Harry is standing in front of him with big worried eyes and Zayn feels as though he should know what he wants. He thinks back to when he dated Michel and tried and failed to envisage a future with him. But a future with Harry seems possible. They want the same things and they get along so well. He’s never met anyone else he likes to talk to as much. Nobody else is as interesting or as kind or as fun, or fills him with so much delight and joy. No one else has such a big and important place in his heart.

He smiles, although it feels wobbly, and Harry looks worried. “Half the time I don’t know what’s going on in my head myself,” he admits. “But do you remember when you said that you didn’t want to be with someone who just wanted a relationship, and you wanted to be with someone who wants to be with you, specifically?”

Harry nods, slow and almost distanced, as though he’s preparing to be hurt. 

Zayn tries to make his smile firmer. “I haven’t always, um, had the healthiest way of approaching relationships. Very all or nothing. A bit all-consuming. But there’s a reason that none of them have worked. And these days, I mean – I’ve been with people, and lately I’ve been happy being by myself. But now I want to be with you. If you want to be with me,” he adds hastily.

He doesn’t even see Harry’s face before he feels arms around him, hard and all-encompassing, and Harry’s chest against his heaving as he sucks in a breath, and Harry turning his face to kiss the side of Zayn’s cheek and then his mouth – and there’s so much joy there, so much happiness, that Zayn finds himself almost laughing, holding Harry’s face in his hands to keep him still before kissing him again. “Yeah?” Zayn asks, and Harry says, “Yeah,” and Zayn says, “I couldn’t imagine my future without you. It’s not even that I want to go out with you, although that’d be nice. It’s that I want everything with you.”

“What?” Harry’s looking at him like it’s too good to be true. 

“Like – I kept thinking about it, I was thinking, one day I want to get married, one day I want to have kids, I want all that – and the only way I could imagine doing that stuff was with you by my side.” Now he’s opened up it feels like a deluge, like the water chucking itself into Isengard and drowning all the orcs and dousing all the fires, in a strange world in which the orcs and the fires are his pains and his self-doubts and his fears. Harry’s glowing as he looks at him, his smile so wide that he looks like his face is about to crack in half, his eyes half-glittering. 

“You’d better not cry,” Zayn warns him, and Harry smiles harder and says, “I love you,” and Zayn says, “Absolutely fuck off,” and then adds, “I love you too,” for clarification. It seems deeper than love – it feels as though Harry is an essential part of himself that he’s been missing all this time. Like he’s part of his strength and his calmness. Like they could be the best team in the world. In the corner of the room, Maisie meows loudly. Zayn feels a strange warring combination of excitement and a deep sense of calm – as though he’s about to set off on an epic journey, but he knows that he’s going to be safe and happy the whole way. 

*

They manage to get the house neat and shipshape for Anne and Gemma’s visit, once they’ve had riotous and delighted sex that almost breaks the kitchen table. Zayn comes downstairs after his shower to find Harry dousing the table with Mr Muscle and carefully wiping it down, and they laugh together until their eyes are filled with tears and Zayn’s sides are hurting. “I just thought,” Harry says between laughs, “that if I saw my mum – leaning on – where your arse—” and Zayn heaves out a laugh that almost kills him, clutching onto the back of a chair.

Thankfully they’ve pulled themselves back together by the time they arrive. Gemma’s pregnant in a way that’s huge and terrifying: she looks as though she might give birth immediately on Harry’s living room floor, but she still manages to waft in smelling like a summer meadow with impeccably sleek hair and perfect eyeliner. Anne’s eyes widen with barely perceptible surprise when she sees Zayn there, before giving him an extra tight hug and telling him how wonderful it is to see him. This could be his mother-in-law, he realises: he could see her at Christmas and at birthdays forever and ever. This could be his children’s grandmother one day. The magnitude of it is staggering and comfortable at the same time. And Gemma’s baby – when it kicks she pulls her dress taut over her bump and shows Harry and Zayn how you can see it kicking through her skin. “That’s its leg,” she explains, and then pats another part of her stomach. “And that’s its bum.” Her belly ripples again and Zayn is fascinated and revolted at the same time. That could be his niece or nephew in there – and Doniya’s kids could be Harry’s nieces and nephew too. It’s so much, but in a great way.

They go next door to the pub for lunch. Gemma huffs as she manoeuvres herself into her seat before shaking her hair out over her shoulders. “It’s hell. Having kids is hell,” she tells them all. 

“It turns out all right in the end,” Anne says, her eyes all twinkly: she has a way of making the people around her feel as though they’re inside some sort of private joke with her, and Zayn finds himself beaming across at her. She asks questions about his new album and says how much she liked his new song, and tells him that Harry missed him a lot when he was in New York – “Mum!” Harry says, sounding horrified – and she asks a lot of questions about Dobby and what it’s like to have a hairless cat. Zayn shows her a picture of him and she stares at it for a moment before saying “Gosh, he’s quite unique,” which is a more polite reaction than most people have, so he’ll absolutely take it.

“I love New York,” Gemma says, fanning herself with a menu. “It’s so glossy and gorgeous and disgusting at the same time.”

“It’s got a bit of a dirty side,” Zayn agrees. It’s one of his favourite things about living there. No one gives a fuck. It’s excellent. “And it feels really anonymous. Plus there’s less of a problem with paparazzi.” Unless you pay them to be there. It’s a handy way of promoting yourself when you don’t want to make eye contact with anyone, which for him is always.

“Do you think you’ll ever move back here?” Anne asks. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Zayn sees Harry tense up, and he knows that he needs to choose his words carefully. “I don’t know. Probably. I do like it here as well – although my flat’s a bit anonymous and boring, so I think that puts me off. But Hampstead is lovely.”

“There’s a time to come to New York,” Gemma says, “and a time to leave.” Zayn blinks at her and she shrugs a shoulder and says, “Company. Sondheim? You’re all uncultured swine.”

It’s true, though. If this works out, if they manage to make a life together, then they’ll have to be in the same city as often as possible, and London will probably be where they choose. That wouldn’t be so bad. He misses having a back garden, and he wants to be closer to his parents, and he wants to educate his future kids in an education system that he’s familiar with. He doesn’t really want to end up like Louis, having a child with a Californian drawl and a way of life that he doesn’t completely comprehend. It’s something to consider. He loves his apartment and he loves his life there, but more and more he can feel himself starting to detach from it with every night he spends in Harry’s bed and in his arms, every time he feels his pulse beat faster at another glimpse of that future life. Home isn’t a city, it’s a person. He’s got his person now.

“I think I’ll probably move back sooner rather than later,” he says, surprising even himself, and he sees Harry glance over at him suddenly before hiding a bright smile behind his hand. 

Lunch goes well. Harry tells a long and laborious story about the saga that he and Zayn had with a parcel delivery a couple of days ago, which felt epic at the time and in hindsight is incredibly dull. The way he tells it is so characteristic and silly and funny that Zayn feels a deep well of affection overflowing in his chest: he finds himself smiling as he looks at him, the way he moves his hands and quirks his mouth. After a moment he feels Anne’s eyes on him and he glances across at her, offers a shyer smile, and feels himself flush. Harry seems to notice, offering him a _You okay?_ glance mid-story, not missing a beat as he reaches across to take his hand. Zayn squeezes it. _I’m okay_. Harry’s got his back. He knows that’s going to be the case from now on. 

Later, Anne and Gemma go out to the theatre, to see some Shakespeare thing. Zayn wants to die just at the concept of sitting through it and from the way Harry mimes vomiting behind Gemma’s head, he feels the same way. Instead they sit out under the fading sun in Harry’s back garden, sprawled on the grass on top of a spread-out blanket and a couple of sofa cushions that Harry ran inside to collect when they realised that lying on the grass was a lot lumpier than they’d expected. They split a bottle of red wine and a box of cheese straws and when night finally falls Harry inches closer to him. The air is cooler now and Zayn appreciates the warmth of their arms pressed together. “Orion’s belt,” Harry says, pointing at the sky, and Zayn says, “The Plough,” and gestures over in its direction. There’s a pause and then Harry says, “I don’t know any other constellations,” and Zayn says, “Me neither,” and they find themselves laughing again. It feels more romantic than if Harry had picked out every star in the night sky for him. 

“Do you still believe in aliens?” Harry asks, once they’ve quietened down.

Zayn waves away what looks suspiciously like a mosquito. “Of course. There has to be other life in the universe.”

“What do you think they’d think of us if they saw us right now?”

“They probably don’t think about things in the same way that we do. Like, their lives would have developed so differently that their concepts of language and thought would be completely different from ours—”

“Zayn,” Harry says.

Zayn rolls onto his side and presses the cold tip of his nose against Harry’s cheek. “I think they’d probably think: wow, they look happy.”

“That’s better,” Harry says, and pulls Zayn on top of him. He goes, awkwardly, resting his knee between Harry’s, not wanting to smack his entire weight on him in case he crushes him to death and he dies. Still, he could get so lost right now, in Harry’s arms, in the cool air, in the rise and fall of his chest, in the stars, in the fact of Harry’s face right there, his dimple, his dark lashes, his green eyes. “I love you,” Zayn tells him again, and Harry leans up to kiss him and then murmurs, “I love you too.” It’s a thrill to say it and to hear it and to feel it, right down to his bones. To be loved is an incredible and glorious thing. 

*

He missed writing. He missed singing, he missed recording, he missed everything. The moment Zayn gets back to New York he goes into the studio and gets down some demos. He needs to make the most of this time: he’s got a move back to London to contend with, along with more album promo that he’ll probably be expected to do. Then he’ll need to go to Niall’s wedding. After that, the future is stretching ahead of him tantalisingly, but he feels as though things are changing so much that he needs to stop for a moment and take note of who he still is right now. He goes back to his cooking class for the last time and says, “I’m seeing someone now too!” to Michel, arguably too excitedly. Michel looks slightly taken aback, but on the whole Zayn thinks he’s happy for him.

He also makes sure that he makes time to take Sandy out to lunch. They go to a new hotel in Soho that has a reputation for fine dining and quirky decorations, and Sandy cackles and says, “I could get used to this!” which makes him feel extremely guilty for leaving. He feels even worse when he tells her that he’s going to be making a permanent move back to London and her face falls for a moment before she makes a visible effort to perk up again. “It’s because I’ve got a boyfriend now,” he tells her, butterflies fizzing in his stomach at the word, and she lights up again at that. He tells her about Harry, exulted to be able to do so: he tells her how sweet he is, how kind, how they want a whole future together. 

“This is what we wanted,” she says, when he’s done talking. “This is what we fought for. For your happiness. For you to be able to love out in the open.” Her eyes are filling up and she curses loudly before blowing her nose with a honk. He tells her that he’ll fly her to London first class whenever she wants so that they can stay friends. He says that he isn’t getting rid of his New York apartment, that he’ll be back to meet with producers and to record and to see his friends and they can see each other then. He can tell from the look on her face that she doesn’t believe him, and so he’ll just have to prove that he’s being truthful.

He packs up all his personal stuff, with the help of Megan. They nestle his awards in packing cases and she helps him go through his clothes. They donate some stuff to Goodwill, and she makes him throw his oldest t-shirts in the rubbish. He picks a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt back out of the bin when she isn’t looking, which feels like a small victory. She’s still going to be working with him – she said that she’s willing to move to London for three months to see how it goes. He’s giving her generous amounts of holiday and he’s offered to pay for air fare so that she can come home and see her family whenever she wants. He’s well aware that a job with him really isn’t worth giving up your entire life for, but he doesn’t want her to leave.

He drops another single. The video is animated, a tiny cartoon version of him hurtling through the night sky in a spacesuit. It looks really cool, and an added bonus is that he didn’t have to show up to film it so he could arrange the whole thing mostly through email and Facetime. He gets a lot of tweets that say things like _Who hurt you baby???_ and _WHO DO WE HAVE TO KILL_ , which he really does appreciate. He likes knowing that there are millions of people out there in the world who have his back. He wrote the song some time after Christmas, when he thought that everything with Harry was dead and gone. It feels as though a whole other version of him was there in his cold apartment then, wrapped up in old hoodies and sitting up in bed with a notebook, feeling as though his heart was cracking out of his chest with grief for what he had let go with Harry. 

These days he feels much better. There are so many different kinds of love. With Perrie he felt a huge amount of relief, as though going home to be with her was like shucking off his boy band persona, but he lied to her so often that he doesn’t know if there was any truth between them really. Gigi was all brightness and light, but it was more like an ambulance flashing red and blue, and sirens going wild. But with her he found himself mimicking a drearier personality than he really had, so that they could fall into their usual pattern of him being cheered up by her. And now there’s Harry on the other side of the world, a steady warm light, a beacon calling him home. He puts Harry on Skype while he makes dinner and dances around the kitchen, he talks to him in a low and soothing voice for hours one night when Harry can’t sleep. Learning to be single was fine, but being in love suits him much better.

*

Going back to London is the most fraught flight of his life, mostly because Dobby is extremely dramatic about the whole thing and meows piteously from inside his basket for the entire eight hours. They’ve hired a private jet, because Zayn anticipated exactly this happening, but by the end even the pilot looks pale and sweaty. “That cat has an extremely penetrating voice,” he says as Zayn and Megan and Dobby disembark, and Dobby hisses in hatred in response and sticks a claw out of the front of his box. 

“Shh, baby,” Zayn says, and pats his little pink paw, and Dobby makes a noise that implies they’re all in danger of imminent death. “You’re having an adventure,” he adds. Dobby does not seem particularly keen on the idea of an adventure, but that’s his problem.

In London, it’s blazingly hot. Obviously Zayn thinks that global warming is appalling, but the feel of heat on his shoulders and face as he steps off the jet isn’t too bad. He turns his face up towards the sun and smiles, and then Megan prods him between the shoulders with the tip of her finger and says, “You’re in my way.” 

He moves down the steps a bit quicker after that. There are two cars waiting for them on the tarmac. Megan’s cab is going to take her to the flat he’s renting for her in Camden, while Zayn and Dobby are going to Harry’s house in Hampstead. The first time he ever went to that house was right after Harry bought it. He’d been the first person to want to move out of their flats up in Finchley, which Zayn had silently resented because it had felt like a personal slight. Harry looked for houses with Lou because for some reason he’d got it into his head that she knew London well even though her Yorkshire accent was even broader than Zayn’s. When he’d finally announced that he’d found a place in Hampstead Zayn had mostly shrugged because he didn’t really know what or where Hampstead was. Liam had asked a few interested questions – he’d been looking for somewhere that Danielle approved of, a gleaming penthouse flat in the city – and Zayn had pointedly said nothing at all, jealousy burning in the pit of his stomach. He’d been looking for his own place then too, although he hadn’t much fancied the idea of moving further into London, so he’d gone for the outskirts, found a house near the countryside that was pretty sick on the outside and that wasn’t too far from his old flat or where Louis had decided to live. Perrie liked it too, which sealed the deal, and Danny and Ant agreed to move down and stay with him so he didn’t get lonely. He’d phrased it like they’d be doing him a favour, rather than the other way round. Feeling like that about Harry’s house was probably pretty stupid. But he’d seemed so happy and so comfortable about the whole thing that it had taken him a step further away from Zayn and turned him even more into someone he felt he didn’t know at all.

Zayn had planned to spend the night before Harry moved out of the flats with Perrie. They’d gone on a date to a pizza restaurant just down the road and had tiramisu for afters. Little Mix had been placed in the same apartment complex after they’d won the X Factor, which had made it pleasantly easy to see each other whenever they wanted. He’d stayed over at her flat afterwards, sat in front of the TV and watched half a film that she’d enjoyed and he hadn’t really understood, and halfway through the night he’d nudged her until she woke up and muttered some stupid lie about a dodgy tummy. She’d clearly not been all that impressed by the idea of her idiot boyfriend having explosive diarrhoea in her shiny new bathroom, so she’d waved him goodbye without too many arguments, and then of course he’d gone over to Harry’s flat.

Louis wasn’t there – he and Harry had a few times in their friendship then that were more fraught than others and so occasionally Louis had ducked out, gone up to stay with his mum or gone to visit El at university or slept in Liam’s flat when he was over at Danielle’s. Zayn gave Harry two missed calls and then knocked on his door until he opened it with pillow lines on his face and his hair standing up on one side and flat on the other, his eyes narrowed with sleepy surprise. “Zayn?” he’d said like a question, and of course Zayn kissed him immediately, before the front door was even shut. The flat was in a fucking mess, half packed boxes everywhere, but that didn’t matter because Zayn started pushing Harry back towards his bedroom right away. His wardrobe was open and empty, boxes and suitcases lined up by the wall. “All ready to go then,” Zayn said, his voice a crackle, and Harry said, “It won’t make a difference,” and Zayn nodded even though he knew deep in his chest that it would. He felt a sort of savage pain, as though Harry was slipping away from him, which was unfair because he wasn’t even his to begin with. Perrie was asleep in her flat and Zayn knew that he could be happy with her if he gave himself that chance, if he gave her the chance, if he tried harder—

He touched Harry’s chest and shoulders because he seemed suddenly ephemeral and about to disappear. Harry said “Zayn,” again, this time less questioning and more reassuring, cupping Zayn’s cheek and leaning in to kiss him. Zayn bit his bottom lip too hard on purpose and made him yelp, before shoving him so they landed together on Harry’s bed, still warm from his sleeping body before Zayn arrived. Harry stroked his sides like he was trying to tell him it was okay or trying to calm him down, and it only made him more emotional, burying his face into the side of Harry’s neck and sucking hard so he’d leave a mark there. Harry gasped and jolted towards him like he was propelled by magnets, holding onto him tight, nails pressed into the flesh of Zayn’s back. 

In the end Harry ended up sucking his dick like an apology, his hands curved around the backs of Zayn’s thighs, his thumbs stroking small calming circles. Zayn felt vibrations from his throat, moans of pleasure, and felt guilty and turned on at the same time before coming, purposely not warning Harry first so his eyes went wide before he swallowed. Afterwards he still found that he hated himself for reasons that he couldn’t begin to put into words, and he asked Harry to fuck him, which of course Harry was absolutely happy to do; Zayn told him he was ready before he actually was and Harry paused when he was half inside him, gasping out, “Are you sure you’re all right? I don’t want to hurt you,” and even though it had hurt, it had been in a good and productive way, like a new tattoo or pinching the skin on the inside of his arm when he felt like shit and wanted to control it. Zayn had said, “I’m fine,” with the side of his face pressed against Harry’s pillow, the smell of shampoo and dirty hair in his nose, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth gritted, and Harry had fucked him harder than ever before, so apparently he hadn’t been too fussed about hurting him after all. Zayn remembers that he wanted it, though, and liked it, and has liked it since then, and although for a while he wondered if it was psychologically fucked up, he also thinks that maybe sometimes you just like what you like and it doesn’t mean much at the end of the day. The next morning, the ache was interesting and foreign as he padded around silently and helped Harry pack his last few possessions, flinging dirty laundry into sports bags and emptying the contents of his kitchen cupboards into boxes. “Bye then,” Harry had said finally, a bruise on his collarbone that Zayn had sucked there the night before, and Zayn had flicked him the peace sign over his shoulder as he ambled back towards his own flat.

The first time in the Hampstead house had been a week or so later. Harry texted him one night, no words like he usually sent, stupid puns and bad jokes and too much correct punctuation: just a picture instead, himself in front of a full-length mirror, no clothes, no nothing, although there were red elastic marks around his ankles which indicated that he’d only just decided to take off his socks. His face was blocked out by his phone and his camera flash, which lent the rest of his skin a strange yellowish glow. But the lines of his body, his chest, his tattoos, the slight curve of his waist and hips, the soft pale skin of his stomach, the only just visible tilt and set of his jaw that Zayn could tell was feigned arrogance—and his hand too, wrapped around his cock, which was hard against his belly. Zayn felt his head spin and a jolt of immediate arousal, which was unfortunate because at the time he was in Perrie’s flat and the other girls were there too, heating up frozen pizzas and opening up bags of salad from Tesco’s. Even then he’d been able to tell that Jesy hadn’t liked him so he’d been hunched silently in the corner of the sofa as the girls talked, his phone in his hand, and then the picture of Harry popped up and he was sunk.

He didn’t even make a conscious decision. He just got out of there sharpish, mumbled an excuse and kissed Perrie goodbye and got into a cab, and before he knew it he was drawing up at this house in a weirdly beautiful part of London. To get there, he’d been driven all the way up a long avenue that was lined with truly colossal houses, the sort that cost twenty million or so, but thankfully the driver had gone past all of them. Zayn was pretty sure he couldn’t handle a proper mansion – his brain would melt and dribble out of his ears and then he’d have to pay the cab company a cleaning fee, to top it all off. Instead Harry’s house was set back from the road behind a golden brick wall. The front of it was white stucco peppered with big uncurtained windows, and Zayn suddenly felt stupid about the house he was pretty certain he was going for, futuristic and cool, when Harry had chosen something more old-fashioned and understated. But then he pushed that thought out of his mind because he fucking liked his house, and Harry’s would probably get boring after a while.

It took Harry a moment to work out how to open the gates, and then when they finally opened he was standing behind them looking young and flustered, shifting his weight uncomfortably in his socked feet on the pebbled driveway, and then they’d had to make a dash for the front door in case it closed and they were stuck outside without keys. Inside the ceilings were high and their voices echoed. Harry walked him through the place and told him about the things he wanted to change – built-in bookshelves here, breaking down a wall there – and Zayn nodded and tried to pretend to be interested. Harry’s bed was a thin mattress on an Ikea bedframe that squeaked worryingly when they had sex on it, and he hadn’t hung up any of his clothes yet. The next morning they had bowls of dry cornflakes for breakfast because the toaster and kettle Harry had bought online from Argos hadn’t arrived yet and his fridge wasn’t working. A few days later when Harry mentioned airily to Niall that he’d stayed with Ben Winston the previous night and Nick Grimshaw the night before that, Zayn worked out with a bit of a shock that the only reason Harry had invited him over was that he was lonely.

Today, the gates whizz open almost immediately when Zayn leans out of the car window to press the buzzer. The wheels crunch over the gravel and he smells the fragrance of honeysuckle and sweet peas. The house is bright white in the sunlight and when Harry opens the front door there’s a golden glow around him, as though everything is suffused with light. He’s barefoot, his hair a messy tangle, his old t-shirt hitched up over his hip as though he’s only just yanked it on over his head. He leans against the doorway and tilts his head to the side and smiles, so sweet that Zayn feels a lurch of tenderness. The car draws to a halt and Zayn gets out, tips the driver, insists that he stays in his seat. He and Harry lug his bags inside. There aren’t many today – the rest is being shipped over, everything else he needs to take with him, his old notebooks, his records, his books. Today he’s just got some clothes, the Neruda, his laptop. Harry sent him pictures of the empty shelves he had built for all of Zayn’s stuff. Inside, the house smells like clean cotton and sawdust.

Once the car is gone, Harry pushes the door shut and turns to grin at Zayn, wide and bright and disbelieving. “You’re here!”

“I’m here!” Zayn agrees. The flush of excitement is more intense than anything he’s felt in years. This is his home now. He reaches out for Harry’s hands and squeezes them hard: they lean into each other, pressing their foreheads together before kissing quickly and releasing each other. By his feet, Dobby lets out a furious yowl. 

Harry breaks away from him. “Goodness,” he says, because he was born and raised in the Anne Twist School Of Doubtful Politeness. He frowns at the cat box before crouching down to turn over the label attached to the handle on the top of it. “Dobby Malik!”

“What else would he be called?” Zayn asks. “It’s his label for when he goes to the vet.”

“It’s cute,” Harry says, straightening up again, his knees clicking audibly. “Come on, let’s get it over with. Let’s get him out.”

“Where are the girls?”

“In the living room asleep.” Harry raises his eyebrows meaningfully. “About to get their goshdarn world rocked by Dobby.”

Zayn laughs, although he feels doubtful that it’s going to work out particularly well. At best, there’ll be some spitting and scratching, but at worst they’re probably all going to end up in hospital while Dobby takes over the house for himself. He carries the cat box into the living room as Dobby lets out even more yelps, as though he’s being poked with something extremely sharp even though Zayn has spent every second of Dobby’s life treating him with love and affection. He bends down, unfastens the door of the cage, and although Dobby stays in the corner for a moment assessing the situation – because he’s extremely sensible – he eventually slinks out. On the sofa, Maisie stands up, her back arching as she stretches. 

“He looks less like a mole with alopecia than he did in the photos,” Harry says unhelpfully.

Zayn elbows him, eyes on Dobby. “Stop being mean to my firstborn son.”

“I would never.” Harry puts an arm around his waist from behind and Zayn feels the weight of his chin resting on his shoulder. He lifts a hand to pet Harry’s hair without thinking and almost sticks a finger up his nose. While Harry’s spinning backwards dramatically and insisting that Zayn’s trying to kill him, Dobby approaches Maisie and Evie on the sofa slowly and thoughtfully. He sits down and wraps his tail around his feet before yowling up at them.

“He’s saying hello,” Zayn breathes. 

Evie hisses, because she’s an extremely rude cat, and Harry says “Be nice,” reprimandingly. “Maybe if I…” He goes over to Dobby and sits down on the floor beside him, cross-legged. His t-shirt rises up and Zayn can see a crescent shaped area of skin on the bottom of his back, the dimples at the bottom of his spine. He sits down beside him and runs a hand across that skin, loving its warmth and smoothness and the way that Harry shifts closer to him. “Hi, Dobby,” Harry says, and reaches out carefully for him. To Zayn’s absolute shock, Dobby allows himself to be lifted and gathered to Harry’s chest. “This is why they call me the pussy wrangler,” Harry says, and almost wets himself laughing as Dobby blinks and twitches one of his big pointy ears. Harry looks down at him and strokes his baldy fuzzy head with his index finger. “He’s warmer than I thought he’d be.”

“He’s not a reptile, Styles. Please tell me that you didn’t think he was part lizard.”

“Shut up,” Harry says. Dobby’s letting him stroke the little wrinkly space between his eyebrows, and he even arches his neck so that Harry can tickle him underneath his skin. Two seconds later his entire frame stiffens and his claws shoot out and Harry says “Oh my God!” with distinct panic in his voice as Dobby leaps abruptly from his arms, but nothing in life is perfect. 

“Are you bleeding?” Zayn asks him,

Harry holds his arms out in front of himself and turns them over. “I don’t think so.”

“In that case,” Zayn says, hooking his chin over Harry’s shoulder and turning to kiss just below his ear, “I think that was extremely successful. He likes you. You’re very likeable. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you that before.”

They unpack some of Zayn’s things together as Dobby curls up on the opposite side of the room from Maisie and Evie and falls asleep. Harry’s cleared out half of his walk-in wardrobe for him but if he’s honest Zayn’s more interested in Harry’s half, fingering patterned shirts and velvet trousers and snakeskin belts – “Fake, of course,” Harry puts in – and silk blazers. If he’d realised before that going out with a bloke would lead to having double the wardrobe, he’d have considered it long ago. He puts on a pair of tartan trousers and feels like an absolute boss until they make dinner and he spills cheese sauce all over himself. “They were vintage McQueen,” Harry says, almost to himself. Zayn says, “I’m worth it,” and Harry flashes him a smile and says, “I suppose you are.”

They book a holiday for the end of August. Harry’s all for Tahiti but Zayn balks when he realises how long the flight is, so they go for the Seychelles instead. Zayn’s parents come down to visit and Harry plans an extensive and extravagant menu for the night they arrive. Of course it all goes dramatically wrong: he burns the sauce and the chicken is dry and when Zayn goes into the kitchen to see what’s up with him he’s just crouched on the floor staring into the oven with an expression of devastated doom. “I wanted it to be nice,” he whimpers, and Zayn sends him off to entertain his parents while he uses his cooking class knowledge to turn the dry chicken into a creamy pasta sauce. “You make a good team, the two of you,” his mum says when he brings the big dish of food in and Harry’s darting around topping up wine glasses, and he feels himself beam. 

They go to the Tate Modern together, and hold hands in the Turbine Gallery, staring open-mouthed upwards at the infinite ceiling. Harry takes him up to the Soho Farmhouse and Kate Moss makes a few comments that may or may not insinuate that she’d like to have a threesome with them. Zayn stares at her goggle-eyed until Harry steps in and politely declines on behalf of them both. They get a box at an Olly Alexander gig and tell their publicists to refuse to comment when they get asked about repeatedly being seen together. When Harry is out, at meetings or auditions or lunches, Zayn walks down to Hampstead Village. He buys pastries to have as mid-afternoon snacks and a bunch of blush-coloured peonies for Harry that make him stop in his tracks when he comes home, stroking the ragged edges of the petals in the hallway, gently cradling a bloom in the curve of his palm as he lowers his face to inhale. Zayn looks over the list of therapists in London that his New York therapist recommended to him, and finds one who understands him and who suits him. He feels as though he’s on an even keel, which is remarkable considering the last few months of his life. He starts, tentatively, to make plans to turn a corner of Harry’s back garden into a vegetable patch. Harry starts to talk to ‘people’, whoever they are, he’s always been better at networking than Zayn, about producing a new stage version of _The Normal Heart_ , at the National maybe, or the Young Vic – “it’s like you said,” he says to Zayn in bed that night, his head pillowed on Zayn’s stomach, “about your friend in New York, that lady—”

“Sandy,” Zayn says, tangling a lock of Harry’s hair around his finger.

“Sandy,” Harry says. “Yeah. What she told you about our history.”

It does feel like more of an ‘our’ now. Their community, their people, their history, their freedom. “What power we have,” Zayn says, trying to detangle his ring from Harry’s hair before he notices and starts complaining, “we need to use it for good.” He sounds like he’s trying to be a superhero, but there are worse things they could do to the world than trying to save it.

Zayn’s album is due to be released at the end of June. Before that, there’s plenty more to do. He talks to his management about a tour and starts to tentatively lay down some dates. He and Harry make reckless promises to each other about not going a week without spending a night together, and although Zayn doesn’t quite believe it, he trusts that Harry means to do his best and that they’ll at least manage to get some Skype sex in there. He does an interview with Zane Lowe about the new record: Zane has always been on his side, probably because they both have mothers with killer taste in names. They talk about the songs and the process and towards the end Zane asks whether coming out affected the album – not really, is the answer – and how Zayn feels now. “Like I’m flying, mate,” Zayn says, feeling himself grin, bright and honest.

Before the album, though, is one very important event: Niall’s wedding. The other boys know by now that Zayn and Harry’s bit of a fling has turned into something more important than that. They’ve had beer and Cards Against Humanity nights with Louis and Eleanor, Zayn’s been over to Liam’s house to watch films and compare Marvel memorabilia a few times, and Zayn’s found himself talking to Niall more and more often. It’s starting to turn back into what it used to be – easy, undemanding, entirely cheerful yet deep at the same time – but without that edge that work brought, that division that happened back when they were in the band together and Niall loved it and Zayn hated it and neither of them understood the other’s perspective. Now they’re free to talk about whatever they want: Niall tells him that although he’s excited about being married to Abby, he isn’t looking forward to the wedding itself with much cheerful anticipation, and Zayn tells him about the culture shock of moving back to London. Hampstead at least is nothing like New York. It’s genteel and polite and sometimes too white and rich and homogenous for him. “You could move, one day, the pair of you,” Niall advises. “You could persuade Harry to do anything you wanted. He’s mad for you.”

“He’s not,” Zayn protests, pleased despite himself. 

Niall snorts at him. “Whatever you say. You should move close to us. You can babysit when we have kids. Liam said you did a grand job with Bear.”

“Only because we both like aliens,” Zayn says. “And because Harry’s so crap at football that Bear scored against him every single time.”

“Stop putting yourself down,” Niall says, sharper now. “Even as a joke. Bear had a great time. One day you’ll be a brilliant dad, we both know that’s what’s between the lines here. And Harry adores you. Just stop for a moment, and let yourself breathe it in.”

They hang up the phone soon after that; it’s almost night but the air is stiflingly hot after another warm day, and half the windows in the house are open. Zayn walks through from the kitchen to the living room, where Harry’s sitting on the sofa a careful foot away from Dobby, his bare feet with their long delicate dancers’ toes balanced on the armrest of the sofa, his eyes on the TV where he’s watching some awful boring period drama. When Zayn comes in he turns and he smiles. _Harry adores you_. There’s such light in his eyes in that moment, such pleasure that Zayn’s there. The simplicity of it is overwhelming. Harry stretches out a hand to him to gesture him over, and Zayn settles down next to him, his shoulder wedged against Harry’s chest, Harry’s arm around him. He pulls Harry’s arm up to his mouth so that he can kiss the inside of his wrist, that pale vulnerable skin. “I love you,” he says, and Harry squeezes him hard and says, “I love you too. Now shut your beautiful mouth, _Bleak House_ is on.” 

Zayn lies there in Harry’s arms and tries to do what Niall said. He stops for a moment and breathes in: the night air, the scent of Harry’s skin, the warmth of his body. It’s reassuring, it’s full of possibility, it’s home. They’re going to do their best for each other. So this is it. This is happiness. It isn’t bad at all.

*

The wedding is in a country house, too far away. Harry drives them up in his favourite vintage sports car, which looks amazing but unfortunately completely lacks any semblance of air conditioning, which means they’re both drenched in sweat by the time they arrive. “I’m worried I’m going to leave a sweaty arse imprint on the leather seat,” Zayn says before he shifts over to get out of the car, and Harry says, “I love it when you talk dirty to me, baby.” 

Thankfully, there is no imprint, but they shower together when they get up to their room anyway. The wedding isn’t until the next day, but Harry wanted to get up there early and try out the hotel spa because, as he said in a matter of fact voice, “Truth be told, I’m a bit of a slut for a massage.” They go in a sauna, and have hot stones rubbed over their backs, and hand massages. Back up in the room Harry asks Zayn to paint his nails black for him and so he does with a little bottle that Harry produces from his overnight bag, careful and slow, trying not to inhale the chemical fumes too strongly. He does a pretty good job, if he says so himself; and then he does an even better job of rimming Harry until he comes while he groans with frustration that he can’t touch anything because of his wet nails.

They go out for dinner, to a restaurant in a little village about half an hour away. Harry has a portobello mushroom burger and Zayn has buttermilk fried chicken: they each swap part of their meals for each other’s, although Zayn privately thinks that Harry got a better deal, and walk back to the car eating ice creams in the summer evening air. They lean against the car to finish them and Zayn can’t help but admire Harry: the muscles in his forearms, his collarbone visible where he hasn’t bothered to do his shirt up more than a few buttons, his strong cut-glass jaw, his brows, the tilt of his nose, his dimples waiting there to spring into action—

And there they are as he turns and catches Zayn’s eye and smiles, the cat who got the cream. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Because you’re fit.” Zayn nudges the side of his arm against Harry’s.

“Thank you. You’re not bad.” Harry’s grinning at him. Logically, Zayn knows that he’s pretty good-looking. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have got the fashion campaigns, the shoots, and if he’s honest a significant percentage of the popularity that he’s managed to attain. But the way that Harry’s looking at him makes him feel as though he’s glowing, like he’s a light that Harry can’t manage to take his eyes off. He wants to bask in it for the rest of his life. 

“Sweetheart,” he says, and leans in to kiss Harry quickly, mint chocolate and strawberry ice cream mingling on their mouths. The village carpark is next to a field and a hedgerow and from somewhere far off he can hear crickets chirping and the dying down of the day’s birdsong. 

*

Back at the hotel, they make their way to the bar. Harry orders a summer fruit cider because Zayn’s apparently dating a teenage girl. He gets himself half a local ale that turns out to be far too bitter for him, and envies the summer fruit cider with every fibre of his being. When he’s two sips in, Harry sighs and goes over to the bar and gets him a cider too. “You were making a face,” he says when he gets back, and screws up his mouth exaggeratedly. “Like you were sucking lemons.” 

“I hate you,” Zayn says, laughing despite himself. The cider’s tinted pink, and it doesn’t taste half bad. Harry leans against his side and grins at him. It’s late, and there’s nobody else in the bar, not even Niall or any of the groomsmen having a cheeky drink to settle their overnight nerves, so it’s quiet enough that Zayn feels good about leaning in to kiss him quickly without worrying about anyone seeing and taking photos and selling them to the highest bidder. He knows there are rumours about them, and that they’ll have to confirm it at some point, but right now their relationship feels rare and beautiful – not fragile exactly, but he doesn’t want to open it up to the rest of the world just yet. It’s for them, that’s all—

And also for Louis, who’s sauntering in all bare feet and rumpled hair, raising a hand in greeting. “Lads! No, don’t worry—” Zayn’s awkwardly trying to remove his arm from around Harry’s shoulders without making it obvious that’s what he’s doing, which is of course making it even more obvious. “It’s fine, it’s just me.” Louis grins at them and Zayn smiles back at him. “El’s asleep,” Louis explains, “so I thought I might come down for a drink.”

“Let me get you one,” Harry says before getting up and slipping over to the bartender. 

Zayn smiles up at him before looking back at Louis. “Good drive up?”

“Yeah, not bad. Bit of traffic outside London, but isn’t there always?”

Zayn’s never noticed, which is probably the only perk of being thirty-three and not having a driving licence yet, but he nods anyway. “Sure. Seen Niall?”

Louis nods. “Earlier. He’s bricking it.”

“Well, it’s nerve-wracking,” Zayn says, “I’d assume.”

“It is a bit,” Louis agrees. “I was as sure as anyone can ever be, I reckon, and I think he is too, but you still want everything to go right – you still want it to be a good day, mostly for her.”

Zayn feels himself glance at Harry again: he’s starting to make his way back over to the table, eyes on Louis’s pint in his hand, almost slopping some of it over the side as he puts it down. “There,” he says. “Carlsberg okay?”

“Brilliant,” Louis says. He doesn’t drink Carlsberg, even Zayn knows that, but Harry looks pleased with himself for getting the right thing, and Zayn’s pleased that Louis is being nice. He shoots approving glances at both of them. Louis takes a sip and smacks his lips together and says, “Lovely and cold, that. Thanks, Haz. You know, sometimes I think that me and El should renew our vows.”

“Really?” Harry’s already got hearts in his eyes, because he’s a ridiculous romantic. “That’s a good idea.”

“Yeah. We didn’t have many people there the first time round – that’s why you two—” Louis looks almost shamefaced.

“We don’t mind that we weren’t there,” Harry says immediately. “Of course not, do we—”

“I mind,” Zayn says, “horribly. I’m never going to forgive you.”

They all laugh, but there is part of him that genuinely feels like shit about not being invited to Louis’s wedding, that they weren’t close enough during that part of their lives. It isn’t the sort of thing he ever thought he’d miss out on. If this thing with Harry works out the way he wants it to, if they ever get married, they’ll invite the other boys for sure. It’ll be a quiet but beautiful day, with only their favourite and most important people there. Their closest family members, parents and siblings, a few of Zayn’s cousins. The boys, their partners, Megan, Sandy, Ben, Mitch, Harry’s other friends who Zayn doesn’t know very well but who he supposes he’ll have to get to know at some point. Dobby and Evie and Maisie as ringbearers somehow. Maybe he could find Dobby a little tuxedo. 

“Fuck off,” Louis says cheerfully. “Anyway, you two’ll be next.”

“Disgusting,” Harry says, and shoots Zayn a faux contemptuous look. “Or maybe it’ll be…” He narrows his eyes speculatively at Louis. “A christening?”

“Harry,” Zayn says, warningly. He’s pretty sure that if a couple’s been together as long as Louis and Eleanor and they don’t have kids and they haven’t said that they don’t actually want kids, there’s usually a reason for it, and that reason is something that they don’t particularly want to mention.

Louis laughs a bit, looking tired suddenly. “I don’t know. One day, please God.” He crosses both sets of fingers and glances upward.

Harry’s clearly realised that he’s put his foot in it. Zayn touches his knee comfortingly under the table. “That was insensitive. I’m sorry.”

“No, it wasn’t. It’s a good question. We’re working it out.” Louis scratches his chin. “There’s adoption, or IVF – again. Fifth time lucky.” He rolls his eyes self-deprecatingly and Zayn feels his stomach lurch. The bitter irony of Freddie – so loved, but still such a surprise, the result of a few nights with a girl who Louis barely knew, and now this. 

“It’ll happen for you, mate,” Zayn says, and leans across the table to cup Louis’s face in his hand for a moment. “It will.”

“Yeah.” Louis sighs and visibly shakes it off before picking up his pint. “Look, they’ve got some board games over there. Scrabble?”

Harry lets Louis and Zayn team up, but he absolutely trounces them anyway, which feels unfair. He’s extremely humble about it, which makes Zayn want to flush his head down a toilet. Afterwards, the three of them wind their way towards the big staircase that leads to all the hotel rooms. It’s late now and as they go down the corridor they keep their voices down carefully so they don’t wake anyone up. Harry reaches for Zayn’s hand and Zayn takes it, and Louis glances down at their joined hands and makes a noticeable effort not to make fun of them. Zayn appreciates it greatly, but then when they’re almost at their room Harry trips over absolutely nothing and Louis lets out a massive honking laugh. “Shut up! People are sleeping!” Zayn says, but he’s laughing himself as Harry rights himself, pink-cheeked and flustered. But then the door across from them opens and the laughter fades in case they’re about to get told off by someone’s angry great aunt.

Except it’s Niall, red-eyed and tousle-haired, squinting and smiling at them at the same time. “Lads,” he says, “howya?”

“Sorry!” Harry hisses. “Did we wake you up?”

“No,” Louis deadpans. “That’s how he looks all the time.”

“Fuck off, Tommo,” Niall says good-temperedly. “You boys been down at the bar?”

“I beat them at Scrabble,” Harry says modestly.

“Good lad,” Niall says. He rubs a hand through his hair and hides a yawn behind the back of his hand. “What’re you doing now? Sleeping?” He makes the word sound like the most preposterous thing ever.

“We’re…” Louis looks at Harry and then Zayn before venturing, “We’re cracking open the mini-bar.”

“Grand. I’ll join you,” Niall says, and that’s how, somehow, they find themselves sitting on Harry and Zayn’s bed five minutes later with glasses of Jack Daniels and Coke from the minibar. There’s a low tap on the door and Louis leaps up to open it, almost upsetting Niall’s drink. Liam’s outside: he looks tired but he’s smiling, almost shy, as he looks between the four of them. “Louis summoned me,” he explains, and waves a couple of cans of Coke and small bottles of whisky from his own room before climbing gingerly onto the bed and sitting cross-legged between Louis and Harry. Then he beams at Niall, his entire face crinkling up, and says, “Tomorrow, mate! You must be so excited!”

“Excited, apprehensive, everything,” Niall says, but he’s grinning so excitement must be winning.

“Abby’s a brilliant girl,” Louis says, and they all hum in agreement. It feels so good to know that things are clicking into place for all of them. Liam’s single at the moment as far as Zayn knows, but it was announced earlier this week that he’s going to play Billy Flynn in Chicago on the West End, and when Zayn texted him to congratulate him, he was absolutely buzzing about it. The band that Louis manages has had a couple of number one singles now, and although Zayn thought he’d probably hate their music, what he’s listened to hasn’t actually been so bad, like they’ve combined some more interesting beats with the guitar music that Louis always loved so much. Niall has Abby, and this wedding day, and his career that has been consistently successful in an unshowy way. Zayn has his new album and the hopeful prospect of his tour, and a new life in London with Harry, and Harry has – what? Harry has his music and his films and his fashion and his easy smile. It feels like arrogance to say that Zayn has improved his life in any way, but he hopes that he has. He seems happy these days anyway. They’re doing their best to make each other happy. 

They drink some more until they’re pleasantly tipsy but not drunk enough to be hungover in the morning, and Harry produces a pack of cards from his overnight bag. Louis suggests poker but Harry groans because he always loses, so they play rummy instead. Niall wins with the same good humour that he brings with him everywhere he goes; Louis complains vociferously, Liam tries to calm him down, and Harry meets Zayn’s eyes with a line of laughter quivering on his lips. Zayn smiles back and rolls his eyes slightly and that laugh makes it out of Harry’s mouth, sweet and low and honeyed. Niall sits back against the pillows and tells them the story all over again of how he met Abby; of how he saw her and loved the spark in her eyes; of how he spoke to her and he knew right away that somehow she was going to be special to him. When Zayn first saw Harry, he didn’t know. He had no idea at all what might happen. He saw a boy with curly hair grinning on the other side of the room, so self-possessed that Zayn was immediately jealous of him and how easy it seemed for him to just exist. It’s taken them so long to get to this point, but it was worth every moment in between. 

Louis gets up and turns the main light off so only the side ones are on and the room is dimmer and feels smaller. He sprawls out across the foot of the huge bed and tells them about another charity event, an auction, that he’s planning to put on for his mum’s charity. Zayn meets Harry’s eyes in a silent agreement that they’ll go and spend unwise amounts of money there, that they’ll donate what they can. Liam tells them about Bear, that he’s going to be spending more time at Liam’s house now he’s a bit older and he can make more decisions for himself. The relief and happiness is palpable in his eyes. Then he turns to Zayn and Harry and says, “What about you two, then? You look like things are going well.”

“They are,” Harry says. It feels good to hear those words and Zayn looks down at the sheets to hide his stupid smile. “We’re living together now. Zayn’s planning to dig up part of my garden to plant things there—”

“There’s not all that much space,” Zayn puts in. “Just some strawberries and tomatoes.” He’d like an apple tree too some time. A whole orchard of them, pear trees too, elderberry trees, plum trees. 

“Well, maybe we’ll move at some point,” Harry says. “Get you more space.”

They haven’t talked about that before, but Zayn doesn’t have to think about it. He nods quickly. Harry’s house will always be Harry’s house, so one day it’ll be good to have somewhere sometimes that’s theirs, shared completely. They don’t have to leave Hampstead, even though it’s full of old rich white people. Harry loves it there. Zayn wants more space. They’ll find a way to compromise. And anyway, he likes it more and more every day. The restaurants, the pub next door, all the people with dogs. Standing at the top of the Heath and surveying the whole of the city, like not-so-young princes. 

He stretches out next to Niall, Harry beside him. Sometimes when he was with the boys when they were younger, he zoned out a bit and got lost inside his own head, and he finds himself doing that now, letting the quiet buzz of chatter run over him like warm water. It’s been a long day, it will be a longer day tomorrow; he lets his eyes drift shut even as he hears Niall’s breath evening out beside him.

When he finally wakes it’s close to daytime. The light in the room is somehow otherworldly: it isn’t morning yet. He half sits up and finds that the other boys are still there, all of them asleep, Louis at the end of the bed and Liam beside him, curled up in a way that’s probably going to fuck up his back for days. Niall’s stretched out beside Zayn and on Zayn’s other side there’s Harry, looking younger than usual as he sleeps, his lashes dark on his cheeks, stubble glittering gold on his chin, the shell of his ear somehow vulnerable in a way that makes Zayn feel furiously and helplessly affectionate towards him. God, he’d fight a thousand battles to keep that content look on Harry’s face forever. 

The first time he woke up in the same room as these four boys was somewhere in Cheshire, in 2010. He was seventeen, and he was broke, and he was afraid of who he was and what the future held for him. It’s almost exactly sixteen years since then, and if at the time he’d known what he’d go through, he doesn’t think that he would have chosen it. But right now it doesn’t seem so bad. The warring voices in his head have been quieted for once. He remembers the peacefulness of waking up in that bungalow when they’d only just been made into a band. He could still smell the chlorine on his skin from the previous night and he’d expected to worry about what had happened with Harry but somehow he hadn’t. He’d looked at the other boys’ sleeping faces and seen his future in them. The air had been still and warm and Louis’s face was pressed close to his shoulder and Niall’s foot was touching his. Dust motes hung in the air and outside the light was pale gold. He thought: _This is exactly where I’m supposed to be._

And now. This room. These people. That same golden light. Niall’s wedding in the morning. These friendships rekindled. Not the same as before, but something new and better. They’re all right, the five of them: everything turned out fine in the end. And then there’s Harry, curled close to him. Zayn shifts closer to him and puts an arm around his waist and drops a kiss onto his cheek. In his sleep, Harry smiles, and Zayn feels that familiar flush of love running through him. He settles back down beside him, to wait until morning comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has finished this fic! It would be wonderful if you could drop me a comment to let me know if you liked it. Love love love.


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